


The Starving Faithful

by onlyoneday, SublimeDiscordance



Series: Take Me To Church [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, Dramatic Irony, M/M, Mentions of Past Eating Disorder, Mild Sexual Content, Mildly Dubious Consent, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recreational Drug Use, Roleplay fic, Sibling Incest, Slow Build, Slow Burn, mentions of alcohol use, mentions of recreational drug use, the slowest of burns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 06:36:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 74,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1888641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyoneday/pseuds/onlyoneday, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SublimeDiscordance/pseuds/SublimeDiscordance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yancy makes a post to an online forum confessing his darkest secret. Raleigh answers, not knowing it's his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there guys. Fair warning: this is my (sublimediscordance's) first time RPing. onlyoneday is being amazing and helping me learn the ropes of this style of writing I've never tried. She's awesome. Just saying.
> 
> So, this is being posted as we write it. As such, there's not really much of an estimate as to when it'll be done, nor is there really much of a schedule as for when each chapter will be posted; the short answer is "when it's written."Also note that the PoV switches around, yet this is still written linearly. Hopefully we've written it in such a way that it's not confusing when the perspective switches.
> 
> Tags will be updated as the story progresses.
> 
> Story (and series) title comes from the Hozier song "Take Me To Church"
> 
> (Yes, we have a series planned for this 'verse)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd except for us looking it over for each other as we go along.

It was supposed to be simple. A way for him to vent the secret he's carried pent-up for the last twenty three years. The thread had popped up, looking innocent enough. It'd just been another of those "post your darkest secret" sorts of things. And, since this was the internet, they were supposed to be anonymous—relatively so, anyway.

At least. As anonymous as one can be in an infinite sea of information.

Normally, Yancy would’ve ignored this particular brand of thread, usually a cry for attention by its maker. Normally, he scrolled right past them without a second thought and instead ended up looking through others that were actually more helpful, such as "how to deal with unrequited love" or "let's talk heartbreak". Normally, he wasn’t one for sharing the details of his lack of a love life. This time, though, he felt compelled to check it out. To say something, _anything_ , if only to ease the weight in his chest by the smallest amount.

One person had posted about the abuse they'd suffered at the hands of their stepfather when they were a child. The thread of comments—almost all of which were offering condolences and support—branching from that would've been longer than his entire body if he'd printed it out. Not that he cared if he got a response, per se, but it was nice to know, in a way, that others were reading these. Maybe they could help him, he’d allowed himself to think.

The words themselves had been easy enough to write, and, when he’d hit the Post button, a pressure he hadn’t even noticed before flowed from his shoulders and out through his toes..

_I first realized I was in love with my brother when I was sixteen. Eight years later, it hasn’t gotten any better. He doesn’t know._

That had been before he left for work. Now, nine mind-numbing hours later, he returns home to his apartment he shares with Raleigh. He knocks on his brother’s door to say hi—leaning in only after he gets the all clear, unable to keep from grinning at the way the kid’s contagious smile seems to split his face when Yancy asks him how his day had been—before he makes his way to the kitchen and makes them both dinner. The knocking, of course, because one time catching Raleigh with his pants down, furiously stroking himself to something on his laptop screen, had been one time too many for Yancy’s sanity; it’s not like he _needed_ additional fuel to fan those fucking flames. While he’s busy with the stove, he hears the front door open then close, so, once he’s done, he leaves something in the oven on low for whenever Raleigh returns. A part of his mind has always lamented the fact that they never seem to do simple things like eat together nowadays, but it’s an inevitable part of the two of them growing up, he reasons.

When he fires up his laptop and opens his email, his hand pauses halfway to his mouth, steaming pasta twined about his fork, his eyes blinking several times in rapid succession.

An unknown email blinks back, followed by the subject line “I saw your post…”

His first, irrational thought is that it’s his brother, having somehow stumbled across his alternate life online and subsequently having sent a message to the dummy email linked to his account, confronting him about the post. But then he actually opens the message, and a sigh worms its way into the air from between his lips. He chews the bite of spaghetti he’d left hanging, now cold, the pasta warming in his mouth as he reads and then rereads the message. He’s not entirely sure how to respond, so he gets up and washes his dishes and leaves them in the rack beside the sink, giving himself some time to think.

It’s when he’s drying his hands off that he hears the front door open again, keys jingling, and he puts the towel back in the handle of the drawer before he wanders out towards the living room. He leans in the doorway and crosses his arms, grinning at his brother where the kid’s kicking his shoes off.

“Have a good time, Rals?”

“Yeah,” Raleigh answers, glancing up with a smile. He’s got one hand braced against the wall for balance as he kicks his sneakers off. The first one comes off fine but the second seems more unwilling, and he grunts after two failed attempts before giving up and bending over to actually untie the laces.

“Just went for a run,” He explains and rights himself, as though his running shorts and drenched shirt weren’t explanation enough. He stretches, pushing his shoulder blades together, and gives a noise of content as he relaxes and starts padding across the room—peeling his shirt off and wiping his sweaty face with what little of the cotton is still dry.

“This lit paper has me going crazy, needed to get all the loose energy— _eugh_ ” He sniffs and pulls a face. “I reek..”

He crumples up the shirt and thinks about throwing at at Yancy for a second but ultimately he decides that he’s just run a three mile loop and getting chased and most likely pounded into the ground doesn’t really sound like a super fun way to end the workout.

Pounded another way, maybe, but that’s never gonna happen.

“House smells good, though. Guess I got home right on time.” Raleigh says, moving on from that train of thought. He has and will forever praise Yancy for his incentive in the kitchen. Raleigh isn’t completely useless, but Yancy is the one with the years of dedicated sibling rearing, and that involves a great deal of cooking.

“I’m just uh, gonna shower. What’d you cook, anyway?” He asks over his shoulder as he heads for the bathroom, already tugging his shorts off.

Truth be told he didn’t just need a run to get the writing jitters out. The paper was a pain in the ass, sure, but that wasn’t really it. Truth is, he’s frustrated. Frustrated and anxious and cooped up and feeling about three sizes bigger than his skin can hold and he just can’t figure out how to shed.

There are some nights where everything feels so tight he thinks he might just burst at the seams. He hides in his room like a coward or forces himself outside to run until he can’t think straight just to get his mind off it. Just to get his mind off his brother. Just to get his mind off all the dirty, pent up fantasies he’s been grasping and rutting against for years.

He turns the shower on but leaves the bathroom door open, not waiting for Yancy’s response before yelling out over the water.

“Hey- I was thinking maybe this weekend we should go on a firework run. It’s almost the fourth and the best stuff always goes first.”

Because if there was one thing they liked doing, it was setting a bunch of explosives on fire in the middle of the road. They’ve never been particularly patriotic ,but any excuse for fireworks is a good one. Raleigh has fond memories of sparklers in their youth, faded memories that seem almost cinematic as he recalls them. Laughing and running in the twilight as a trail of bright light shoots out behind him, the sparkler in his fist branding patterns in their vision, ghost lines appearing when they blink. He remembers his mother’s laugh and the smell of a barbeque in the back yard. Look, Yancy! He’d screamed, waving the sparklers in circles until they’d gone out.

He remembers the year he got too close to a roman candle and burnt his eyebrows off.

He remembers the year their family fell to pieces and they were barely able to keep the lights on and feed themselves. Yancy had come trotting back from work with a box of sprinklers and they sat in the back yard waving them with a bittersweet glee and a bottle of whiskey they’d found stashed in the back of the pantry - the distant phantom smell of barbeque floating on the wind.

Yancy, for his part, stands in the doorway to the kitchen for a moment, trying to get his body under control. It’s bad enough living in the same damn apartment with his brother sometimes, especially on the nights he finds himself standing outside Raleigh’s door, the urge to just enter and curl up with him they way they used to as kids nearly overwhelming. But, when the kid goes and does something like _that_ … Well…

He knows his brother is attractive. Has been _quite_ aware of that fact since Raleigh had turned fifteen and started dating. Girls _Yancy’s_ age would ask him just _exactly_ how old his kid brother was, if he was available, if he thought they had a chance. Yancy had always responded the same way: “That’s my little brother you’re talking about. Don’t even think about it.”

However, even before then, he’d known. He’d always seen the spark of beauty in the kid, something so much deeper than outward appearances; a kind of light that Raleigh’d always held just beneath the surface, a gentleness and a way of looking at the world with an unending wonder that boggled Yancy’s mind. Turning fifteen and the sudden surge of hormones that had accompanied it—allowing the scrawny kid to bulk up into a suddenly-gorgeous man—had only served to make that beauty external as well as internal. There had only ever been two times in his life Yancy had seen that spark dim, and, currently, they don’t have any parents left to die or walk out on them.

It’s the reason why, even if their bastard of a father somehow _does_ manage to find them, Yancy will never allow the man back into their lives.

He still has nightmares of that shattered look on his brother’s face, of the broken, plaintive _Why’d he go Yance what did we do wrong?_ s that’d poured from between his brother's lips.

For the same reason, he fights his body’s reaction to the fucking _delicious_ sight of Raleigh practically stripping in front of him—and, okay, _maybe_ he’d chanced a look when the kid’s face had been hidden behind his soaked-through t-shirt, but who could blame him, really?—and forces his mouth to give shape to words once he thinks he’s able, hip-checking the doorframe to stand and follow his brother’s retreating back.

“I, uh,” he marshals his thoughts as he walks, the myriad of questions that’d been thrown his way piling up in his head, “I made spaghetti. Nothing fancy. Just doctored up the sauce a little, added some meat, that’s all. There’s some waiting for you in the oven whenever you get done.”

The scent of his brother’s sweaty body practically slams into him as he gets closer to the bathroom, and, _fuck_ , that should not be as arousing as it is. He has to shake his head and physically _will_ himself to not get hard—well, hard _er_ , because, really, there’s no way he could’ve been completely unaffected by that god damn half-striptease earlier—before he continues following. The shower starts running, the door still open, and Yancy steps just past the threshold to add, “And, uh, yeah. We can actually go on the fireworks run tonight if you’re feeling up for it? I know it’s not exactly early, but it’s not exactly late yet either, so… I guess let me know when you get out of the shower? And don’t forget to eat something, too. I’ll be in my room.”

That said, he flees from the mental image of his brother just behind the curtain, completely drenched from head to toe, water running between the muscles he knows are there, cock hanging heavy between his legs—

He has to slam his door and grip his crotch painfully hard, doubling over as the air leaves his lungs like he’d just been punched in the gut, to not fucking cream his pants at that image alone.

Jesus fuck. His brother, knowingly or not, is going to _actually_ be the death of him.

Raleigh’s going to be out of the shower, probably sooner rather than later, and Yancy’d told him to come talk to him—though, whether the kid’ll actually do it or whether the space between them will continue to grow is anyone’s guess—so there’s no time for a quick round of jacking off. Instead, casting his eyes about for something, _anything_ , to distract him, Yancy’s eyes land on his laptop, still open and locked on his desk. The email from earlier is still open when he plops down in his chair and enters his password, and he casts his eyes over it yet again before leaning back in his chair, sighing and running his hands over his face, pulling at the skin around his eyes.

He still doesn’t know what to say.

He settles for pulling up his real email in a new window over the forum-only dummy, looking through the twenty new messages his boss apparently feels the need to send everyone every damn day.

Seriously, the man is beyond annoying. Apparently, when a highly successful scientist is told to run experiments out of three labs instead of one, his I.Q. plummets. Yancy’s glad he’s nothing more than a tech; he’d probably shoot himself inside of a week if he were one of the poor postdocs or Ph.D. candidates. The emails from today are the usual bullshit: complaints that someone hadn’t rearranged their station exactly the way they were supposed to, a reminder that food is not allowed inside the lab despite the fact that the man is commonly seen gesticulating wildly with a doughnut in hand—one postdoc had even complained to Yancy that their culture had been contaminated by a flung piece of frosting—and a dozen or so more messages that all say, in different words, that their productivity is not high enough and that they need publishable results before the month is out.

It’s an effective distraction. So effective, in fact, that Yancy is taken by surprise when the sound of the water running through the pipes in the wall his room shares with the bathroom cuts off abruptly. He shakes himself to dispel a sudden feeling of dread that’s building in his stomach.

He should probably do something productive. Just in case Raleigh doesn’t show. With a resigned huff, he pulls up the data he’d gathered for one of his classes, and sets about trying to take measurements even when, for some reason, half their time-lapse photos seem to be out of focus.

For perhaps a few moments, he forgets everything else, losing himself in his work. It’s a nice feeling.

But nice.

It’s been a while since they have had something fun to do. If the past was anything to judge by, they would most likely go to the nearest little stand that always seemed to pop up this time or year and inspect the wares for the biggest, meanest looking balls of certain death they could find. They might stop somewhere and get a beer and that would be that.

“Ooh, spaghetti,” Raleigh answers over the water, scrubbing shampoo through his sweaty hair. “And yeah, tonight could be good. I could use a distraction, anyway.”

If Yancy says anything else he doesn’t hear it, head fully submerged under the showerhead as he washes out the soap.

Come to think of it, they haven't spent much time together at all, lately. Not that it is anyone’s fault. They have jobs, classes, friends. That’s just how it is. And maybe..considering the dark places Raleigh’s mind often wanders, it’s for the best. Places like the freckles that run up the length of his brother’s strong forearms, the glint of mischief in his eye and the gentle curve of his lower back. Those arms tugging him close, those lips devouring him, Yancy falling to his knees in the very shower Raleigh was standing in now, lips plump, a moan from his throat as he takes Raleigh into his mouth, water beating down over the both of them as his tongue lulles and bobs around his cock. Agonizingly hot and wet and so tight—

S _top it Raleigh!_

He gasps and slams forward, one hand shooting out in front of him to slap the tile wall, the other around his cock, stroking furiously as he comes. Orgasm smacks him right between the eyes and for a second he’s floating. For a second he’s nothing. For a second it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. And all the evidence is washed neatly down the drain.

Shame creeps up his neck and burns his ears and he swears lightly, hanging his head for a second to collect himself. He pants lightly and whines. Finishes his shower as quickly as possible and scurries to his bedroom.

Yancy has been on his mind a lot lately. More than usual, even. He towels off and slips into a pair of clean jogging bottoms, rooting around in a pile of Probably Clean for a loose tanktop before sitting down on his bed and dragging over his laptop. He takes another moment, a breath to center himself and shake out the jelly from his spine before opening it back up.

There, waiting for him, is the same general interests forum he’d been surfing earlier in the pursuit of ignoring his lit paper for as long as possible. He refreshes and scrolls to see which threads have grown. He checks the account’s email to see if he’s gotten a reply to one of the threads he saw—C’mon Anons, Admit Your Darkest Secret—nothing. Raleigh isn’t quite sure why he did it, only that the compulsion to was overwhelming. But maybe he’s too much of a freak. Maybe it wasn’t right to contact someone over their deepest darkest secret, even if you harboured the same one.

“Stupid..” He mumbles to himself as he rereads his letter.

 

_[[ To: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

_From: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

_**I saw your post…** _

_Hey, sorry to bother you. I know this is weird and probably uncomfortable, I just wanted to say that what you said.._

_Well, you aren’t alone._

_It’s complicated and I have no idea what to do. I feel like it’s all starting to build and there’s nowhere for the pressure to go. I can’t imagine not being around him but I don’t know how much more I can take before I snap._

_Do you think you’ll ever tell him?_

_In any case, I hope you figure it out._

_If you do, maybe pass some of that wisdom back this way? ]]_

 

He sounds like a psycho.

He’s sure he sounds like a psycho.

Raleigh sighs hard and flops back against his bed, hands in his hair as he growls out a noise of frustration. He’s going insane, that’s the only option. And now he’s harassing poor innocent people on the internet. What the hell is happening to him?! And what’s more, what the hell is he going to do about it.

Nothing, apparently. There is no call to action. There is so grand lightbulb moment. He rolls on his side and stares at the wall in the direction Yancy’s bedroom. The weight on his chest is overwhelming.

“What are you gonna do, huh Rals?” He asks the air quietly. This can’t go on. Logistically, moving out doesn’t make any sense, and even if it did he isn’t sure he could bring himself to do it. They’re attached at the hip and separating like that is terrifying. He could get a boyfriend, maybe. Find someone to devote all his time into and try to channel his feelings into something not completely destructive but...wouldn’t it just be a lie? Wouldn’t that be totally unfair to everyone involved? He has no interest in hurting anyone. He’s dated before and he knows it always ends up the same way. Angry and frustrated on the couch with a six pack of beer and no way to actually explain to his concerned brother what’s going on and just why it didn’t work out. _It just wasn’t right_ can only get you so far so many times and slamming Yancy down on the couch to demonstrate why just wasn’t ever going to happen.

 

It takes him nearly an hour, but Yancy manages to finish his measurements, closing out the program he’d been using with a sigh of frustration. He’d had to toss over half their data, and he’s _really_ not looking forward to telling his labmates that, yes, he might work as a tech in a research lab, but, no, that does not mean that he can work miracles when some dumb nineteen-year-olds don’t know how to use a fucking microscope. In a _real_ lab, with _real_ scientists, people actually know the difference between the fine focus and the coarse focus. He rubs at his eyes tiredly, glancing over at the clock, then turns his gaze back towards his screen. The corner of the window where his forum email is still open is peeking around the edge of his work, and he sighs for what feels like the hundredth time that day and brings the window back to the forefront of everything else.

He still can hardly believe it.

Someone like him.

Someone who wants someone they shouldn’t. Who, like him, has no idea what to do.

It’s almost as if this other person is reaching into his mind, into his very _soul_ , and extracting the words that best define him.

And it’s that, the spirit of kinship he feels with this other human being who is literally nothing more to him than words, _pixels_ , on a digital screen, that ultimately compels him to hit the reply button and start typing.

 

_[[ To:[lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com](mailto:lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com)_

_From:[ybananchor@jaegermail.com](mailto:ybananchor@jaegermail.com)_

**_ re: I saw your post… _ **

_No, it’s fine. It’s actually comforting to know that I’m not the only one._

_I know exactly what you mean. He has absolutely no idea, but I just feels like every day I have to play this stupid game of hide and seek. Except, not really, because it’s not like one of us is trying to find the other. It’s a dumb metaphor, actually. Ignore that, I guess._

_The point is that I hate the way I feel like I can’t be myself around him anymore. I mean, we’re brothers. We’re supposed to be close. But… I can’t. I can’t let that happen. Because I can’t do that to him. It’s not fair. He has his whole life laid out ahead of him, and I don’t want to drag him down with me. But, even then, I hate that there’s this rift forming between us. I hate that I feel like I lose him a little bit more every day. I hope your situation is at least a little better than mine in that respect._

_Tell him? Probably not. See above about not ruining his life. I want to, though. All the time. We’re both in college and rooming together for cheaper rent. At least. That’s what I tell myself, sometimes. Anyway, it’s hard, especially when things come up where it’s obvious that he only trusts me_ because _I’m his brother. You don’t walk around half-naked around people you’re trying to impress or might have feelings for, after all. And when he does that, I just… I want to grab him and hold him and tell him everything_ _—all of it—so badly that it hurts. You know what I mean? It happens all the time and it’s torture._

_God, I’m sorry, you probably think I’m crazy or something. I promise I’m not._

_Unless, of course, I actually am, in which case I’d be convinced I wasn’t._

_Alright. I’m going to cut this off here before I make a complete idiot of myself. My brother… well. I need to go help him with something, anyway, so I suppose this is as good a place to end as any._

_Talk to you soon. Maybe. If I haven’t completely scared you off by now.]]_

 

He hits send before he can think about it, closing the browser and then the screen on his laptop just to make sure he doesn’t do anything else he might regret later. He rubs between his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose to try and dispel the feeling that he might’ve just made a huge mistake, and gets to his feet, grabbing his keys from his desk as he stands.

He knocks on Raleigh’s door, speaking without waiting for a response.

“Hey, kid, y’wanna go get those fireworks now?” He jingles the keys around his finger. “I can drive if you’d like.”

“Uhhhhhyeah? Sure.” Comes the response a moment later. He sounds distracted and it could be the truth as he is currently hunched over his computer reading something.

The person from the forum wrote back. He wasn’t expecting it, not really, but he’d been hoping they would. If only just to see what they had to say on the matter. He reads it once and is mostly shocked, it’s like every single line is pulled right out of his head. He reads it again to make sure he didn’t misunderstand but- nope- he’s not seeing things.

Raleigh would reply but then Yancy is at the door talking about fireworks and oh- right. Yeah.

“Just lemme put my pants on.” He supplies and scans the email once more before slamming it shut and scrambling for outside clothes. His mind is racing, his heart is in his throat. He can’t believe this is actually happening. Of all the totally random things to happen, out of all the insane, ludacris things to do..

He can barely think and stumbles over a heap of clothes on the floor. Mental note, clean his room later. Man, he’s not going to be able to concentrate at all with his mind racing like this.

_Talk to you soon. Maybe. If I haven’t completely scared you off by now_

As is that would scare Raleigh off. As if finally, _finally_ meeting someone who gets it would make him run for the hills.

There’s a small part of him that starts to scream when he opens his bedroom door and gives a light smile, easing out into the hall. The part of him that blushes whenever Yancy stands too close or they brush past each other in a way that should really just be basic, tactile touching. People touch, it’s not supposed to be a big thing, but the more he tries to make it _Not A Thing_ the more it becomes one and then Raleigh can’t see any other choice but to run for both their sakes.

What a mess.

But this person… This person knows exactly what he’s dealing with. They’re even both in college and living with their brother. He has so many questions. Or… at least.. Shit, he doesn’t know. He just wants to talk. He just wants one person he can talk to any not have to worry about. Hey, I’m in love with my brother and it’s really not okay. One person he can say that to and won’t call the police. Just—he can’t believe it.

“Sure, you drive.” He says and shrugs on his jacket and shoes by the door. “We definitely need to check out the guy we got the screaming rockets from last year.” Raleigh grins and sticks his hands in his pockets. “Those were awesome.”

“Yeah, sure, awesome.” Yancy can’t help the wry note in his words as he reaches past his brother to get his own jacket from the rack by the door, because, though it’s almost July, it’s been fucking _cold_ —unseasonably so—the past few days. The near-contact has a thread of warmth and arousal trailing under his skin that makes him pull back in alarm even as his body tries to surge forward, to seek out _more_. He has to blink forcefully once, twice, before he picks up the thread of his own thoughts again.

“If, uh,” damnit, “if by awesome you mean it almost got the fuckin’ cops called on us because of the noise complaints when you shot off three at once, then yeah: pretty fuckin’ awesome, bro.”

When Raleigh splutters at him—probably to defend himself, Yancy’s sure—he laughs and briefly grips his brother’s shoulder. The contact may or may not send an electric jolt up his entire arm, and he removes the offending hand perhaps a half-second faster than what would’ve otherwise seemed nonchalant. Yancy winces internally. His mask, so carefully crafted over the years, is slipping—has been for several months now. If he’s truly honest with himself, it’s part of the reason he’d felt the need to _tell_ someone about it. And, in a way, he’d hoped that having it out there would, maybe, alleviate the pressure, would somehow make it easier, would help him to not lose his brother. Because, if Raleigh finds out—if Raleigh _ever_ finds out—he knows that he can kiss his relationship—hell, _any_ relationship—with his brother goodbye.

And that’s not an option.

At the same time, though, he refuses to not be a brother to Raleigh. Which is why, as his fingertips leave the doubly-covered shoulder, he adds, “But, either way, yeah, if you promise to be good, we’ll stop by his place.” A smirk tugs at the corners of his mouth as his lips pull away from his teeth. “So hop to it, brat. We’ve got shopping to do.”

Yancy strides out the door and down the hallway, calling, “Don’t forget to lock our shit up!” over his shoulder before exiting their building, the evening air puffing white with his exhales despite the season. He expects his brother to follow. He’s not disappointed.

Raleigh tromps up to the car with all the exuberance of a puppy. Yancy expects nothing less from the kid, and it’s part of what he loves about him: the unswaying happiness and optimism that he seems to carry around with him at all times. The same happiness that’d gotten them both through Mom’s death and Dad leaving them, though he’s sure that Raleigh’s convinced what he perceived to be Yancy’s unending strength is the reason they got through it all. In truth, though, he’d drawn that strength from Raleigh. It’s something he’s never told anyone. Maybe his new friend will understand.

A shiver works its way up his spine, and Yancy realizes that he’s been staring at the car door for perhaps too long. He slides the key home, opens his door, then climbs in and reaches across to unlock Raleigh’s door before starting the car.

Of course, as soon as the kid sits down, his stomach growls. Loudly. _Very_ loudly. Brows scrunch themselves together as Yancy huffs in exasperation.

He knows he acts like an overbearing parent sometimes, but the truth is that, first and foremost, he feels responsible for Raleigh. Sure, the kid’s always been willful and strong-headed and, above all, Yancy’s always tried to make sure that he and Raleigh are _equals_ as brothers and he just so happens to have been the only one to feed and clothe them until Raleigh turned eighteen, but…

There’s still—will probably always be—a part of him that has to coddle the kid, has to make sure he’s okay.

He doesn’t know what that says about the fact that he’s also in love with his brother. He’s not quite sure he wants to know, either. Again, more conversation fodder for his new potential friend.

“Damnit, kiddo,” his words flow past his lips, soft, mostly flat and breathy, “I thought I told you to eat something. What the hell? Did you seriously just… not?”

“Oh—” He looks down and pokes at his stomach, brows furrowed for a moment before looking back up at his brother. “I uh. Guess I forgot?”

Raleigh shifts a bit in his seat and braces himself for the lecture he’s sure will follow, quickly opening his mouth to combat it before Yancy can even go there. “I didn’t mean to. I got in the shower and did some stuff online and now we’re here.”

Food seems, for whatever reason, to always be a point of conflict for them. When they were little and Raleigh was picky, when they were slightly less little but alone and struggling to afford groceries, when Raleigh started modeling part time to pay for school and picked up the bad habit of replacing meals with running and diet coke. It’s not like he does it on purpose. He likes food and he likes Yancy’s food and God knows his brother has always, _always_ provided it without fail, but it’s always been a little difficult.

But damn…now that Yancy has said something he realizes just how hungry he is and wilts, longing for his forgotten spaghetti as they hit the open road. He supposes he could wait until they get back home again but they’re going out for fun, so rushing on account of food seems stupid.

He can hear it now, Yancy will look over and roll his eyes and ask _what am I gonna do with you, kid?_ The answer to which Raleigh already has at hand.

“We could stop somewhere? Ah, yeah, Yance—let’s get curly fries!”

The answer to all of life’s problems is curly fries and you can’t convince him otherwise. Maybe eating something will shake him from the anxious daze he’s in because of that email. Put his blood sugar back in the right spot or whatever. Stop his shoulder from tingling from where Yancy’s hand was and then quickly taken away. That...now that he thinks about...that had been weird. Maybe he’d shocked him or something. But it had been good Yancy didn’t linger or it would have pulled a small whine from his lips and an ache to his groin and— _stop it. Stop it, fucking stop it!_

Yancy’s eyes roll so hard he’s left momentarily wondering if he’d actually pulled something, huffing lightly. The memory from almost two years ago, driving past that damn billboard—an underwear ad or something of the like—and seeing his baby brother’s mostly-naked body plastered across it for all the world to see had ended up being the second biggest shock of that particular day. Not that he hadn’t appreciated the view—because, _Jesus_ , he’d known the kid was attractive, but he hadn’t known that Raleigh could look like _that_ —but it’d still played hell with his self-control and made it impossible to focus the entire day. He’d almost contaminated the work one of their master’s student’s thesis was riding on, only stopped at the last second when he’d realized that, no, that was a _waste_ container, _not_ a stock solution.

However, the biggest surprise of the day had been when he’d gotten home. Just in time to catch Raleigh climbing out of the shower, towel wrapped around his waist, wide smile at the ready to greet him home after a day of classes and work.

The words readying themselves on Yancy’s tongue had died at the fucking _cadaverous_ way the kid’s ribs had stuck out beneath his skin, the way his arms holding up the towel had been little more than skin, bones, and too-lean muscle. He remembers the way he’d made a noise that even he would describe as wounded. How he’d wrapped a confused-looking Raleigh in his embrace. How he’d been able to feel the nubs of the kid’s _spine_. The single thought that’d reverberated, _resonated_ , throughout his skull: ‘ _What did I do wrong? How did I not notice?_ ’

He remembers the talk they had afterward, self-recriminations ringing silent in his ears the entire time.

The memory attempts to cloud his eyes, and he has to forcefully pull himself out of it, to keep himself from falling into the past, and focus on driving.

“Kid, we _talked_ about this,” there’s more emotion in his voice than he’d intended to let through, but even he can’t tell if it’s anger, worry, or something softer that’s coloring his words. “You can’t miss meals. Not after… before, alright? We’ll get you some curly fries, sure, but only after you eat something real. ‘S a burger sound alright? We can pick one up when we get you your fries.”

His mouth quirks upward in a smirk as a thought invades, his mind supplying words to try and break the tension climbing up his neck as he taps a senseless rhythm against the steering wheel.

“Your precious twirly taters.”

He may or may not snort under his breath after the last word, catching his bottom lip between his teeth.

Raleigh furrows his brow and sets his jaw the way he always does when he prepares to defend himself. He wasn’t _trying_ to skip meals, he’d just forgotten. And he says as much, sinking down into his seat a little.

“Yeah, burger is good.” A pause. “You know I just forgot. I woulda remembered, I was just reading something. It’s not like-” Like he was forgetting to take care of himself again. “ I’m not.”

Yancy had taken it as a personal failure and Raleigh was horrified when his brother had finally confronted him about it. He hadn’t realized.

A sigh.

“I know, Rals,” guilt worms its way into Yancy’s gut at the expression he can see on his brother’s face; he can practically read the defensive anger there. He forces his eyes back to the road, passing someone going ten under the speed limit before he continues speaking. “I know you didn’t mean for—yeah. And I believe you, okay?” He looks away from the road for a moment to send his brother an imploring glance. “I believe you, I really do. I just… I get worried about you sometimes. Besides, It’s my job as your brother,” the word feels like it carries some special sort of emphasis in his mind, though he tries to keep it as neutral and natural-sounding as possible, “to worry about you.”

A quiet laugh to himself as he pulls into the lot of their favorite diner, sliding his Toyota into a pick-up spot before turning towards Raleigh in the seat, “Line one of the job description: keep idiot brothers from doing stupid shit. Now, go,” he props himself up awkwardly in his seat, pulling out his wallet and counting out a few bills, “get your greasy curly fries that I slaved over a hot engine to get for you. And a burger. And, I dunno, whatever the pie of the day is, I guess? For me? And, uh, I guess for yourself, too, if you want?”

“Full time job, bro.” Raleigh answers. He doesn’t mind poking a little fun at himself. Especially when it is very, very true. He would be totally lost without his brother and he knows it.

He takes mental stock of the order and nods, taking the money, unbuckling and letting himself out of the car.

“Yep, sure. Hang tight.” And then he’s jogging inside to charm the waitress into making that an extra big curly fries at no extra cost and oh—wow—those pieces are pie are huge. Thank you!

It never hurts to be nice and the Beckets are there frequently. Enough to be on a first name basis with the hostess. He remembers idly as he waits for the order that there used to be days when they didn’t even look at restaurants because it was just too much money. Even a little diner like this one that wasn’t after anyone’s wallet. The memory wells up in his chest but he lets it out with a long, slow breath and silently thanks whatever lucky stars they have that those dark times have long since passed. These days he can get five hundred dollars for a day’s work. His last big job was a couple grand and his face all over the city, maybe even the nation. Seeing yourself thirty feet tall on a billboard will never get Not Weird, but it isn’t something he is going to complain about. The work isn’t always frequent but with Yancy’s stable employment and his more infrequent but well paying side work they aren’t doing too badly. Thank God. He takes one of the little boiled sweets from the bowl next to the register and twists the cellophane between his fingers, unwrapping and rewrapping it as he waits before giving in and popping the little blue sugar drop into his mouth to clack behind his teeth.

Shit, he hadn’t meant to forget dinner. He would have gotten there eventually but he was just so worked up and distracted by that email he had sent that he didn’t even think about it. Yancy probably thought he was being dumb again. He’d have to make more of an effort. Maybe consciously stand next to him and eat so he wouldn’t worry so much. Raleigh knows the whole modeling thing makes Yancy nervous and, yes, when Raleigh had first started maybe he had forgotten to take care of himself a little bit, but he’d honestly had no idea he had lost that much weight. He felt fine and all his feedback from work had been really positive, and between all the makeup and photoshop its hard to gauge what you look like when the final product is released. He had known he wasn’t exactly _big_ but he hadn’t thought he was so small, either. No one had said anything until months later Yancy had nearly had a heart attack. Stopped him in the hall and gathered him up and asked what he’d done to himself. The look on Yancy’s face had been little short of heartbreak and it took him literally putting Raleigh on a scale and standing next to him in the mirror to point out just what was wrong with this picture. And the revelation had been like a smack in the face.

After that he made more of an effort to be healthy. He felt better, It made Yancy happy and it didn’t seem to be impacting work any, so it was all good. He was looking for the magic point of balance and seemed to be getting there these days. He checked his phone to see the time, fiddled about online, checked his email and the forum email as well to re-read the reply he’d gotten just prior to their leaving the house. The person seemed to think that opening up would scare him off. And maybe it was a little scary in the idea that admitting to anything made it real outside the confines of his own body. There was proof somewhere that he couldn’t erase. Another human being out there that knew his deep, dark, dirty secret and now there was nothing he could do about it...but surely that could also be a freedom for sorts? Maybe opening up would relieve some of the pressure building in his body. Maybe it would keep him from wanting to scream and thrash his room to pieces. Maybe it would keep him from feeling like he was going to spontaneously combust every five minutes.

Because all, _all_ he wants in the whole world is for Yancy to know and feel the same way. And he can’t have it. He can never have it. If he ever found out he’d just get this...look on his face. That same look when he realized Raleigh was too skinny. That look that says _my brother is sick and it’s my fault_. He’d take it all onto his shoulders and harbour it like a cross. Yancy would say no, kiddo, it’s not you, I did this to you somehow. I was too close, I kept you too close. And Raleigh would scream and rail against him because it wasn’t true! There was nothing Yancy could have ever done to him that would hurt him. This wasn’t- it didn’t _have_ to be a bad thing. To cut it short, it would be a mess. And Raleigh would be responsible for destroying the only family he has left. And he won’t- _can’t_ do it. Not to Yancy. Never to Yancy.

He sighs and waits and twiddles his thumbs until the his order is up and he pays and thanks them, leaves with a smile and a wink and makes back for the car.

“Is chocolate mousse a pie?” He asks, getting back into the car and wrestling the bag into his lap so he can drop the two styrofoam take out cups of pepsi into the holders in the center console, the smell of fresh cooked fries and bacon cheeseburger filling the space.

“Because technically I don’t think it is.”

Yancy starts from where he’d been staring at his phone. As soon as Raleigh had shut the door to get food, he’d pulled out his phone, synced up his forum email in the mail app, and stared at the sent messages folder—specifically his reply to the other person. He’d long since given up trying to find meaning in their email itself, as his own—ybananchor—was practically nonsensical unless someone actually knew that it was him. So, knowing that he knew, well, nothing about this other person other than that they loved their brother, conceivably in the same way he did, he had been tossing the idea around in his head of sending another reply, one that would, hopefully, mend some of the damage he’d probably done with his first message. The fact that there hadn’t been an answer yet only made the sick feeling in his stomach churn that much more intensely.

Then again, he didn’t know what he’d been expecting. He’d sent his reply off less than an hour ago. He didn’t _really_ expect the other guy—or girl, he honestly wasn’t sure; yet another fact on the ‘unknown’ pile—to answer that promptly. Hell, maybe it meant that they hadn’t read it yet, so he could still somehow maybe not come off as a complete psychopath.

His mind made up, he’d written up a new reply.

 

_[[ To:[lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com](mailto:lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com)_

_From:[ybananchor@jaegermail.com](mailto:ybananchor@jaegermail.com)_

**_ re: I saw your post… _ **

_Sorry about my last message, if I came on too strong. You don’t have to share anything about yourself if you don’t want to. I’ve just never really had anyone to talk to about all this before and… I don’t know, I guess I’m not sure what the protocol is for something like this. It’s not exactly something I can just bring up with my friends (if I had any), so I don’t really have any practice talking about it. Hell, I don’t even have much practice_ thinking _about it._

_I guess what I’m trying to say, what I should’ve said before, is thank you. Even if you don’t answer (and I wouldn’t blame you), at least I don’t feel as alone in this as I did.]]_

 

Raleigh had opened the door right as Yancy’s thumb had descended on the send button, his eyes watching intently as the small line at the top fills to indicate his message has been sent successfully. Once done, he drops the device back into the well formed by the handle in his door and turns to face his brother, trying to feign nonchalance as he accepts the small takeout container thrust his way. Flipping it open, he can’t help the grin that breaks out on his face as he looks back up, catching his brother’s eye. He wants it to be awkward, some part of his mind is telling him that it _is_ awkward, but all he can do is laugh at the open expression he finds there.

“Yeah, kid, it counts,” he feels his cheeks tighten as his lips pull back from his teeth, eyes being forced incrementally shut as he lets out a whuffing chuckle. “ ‘S called chocolate pie. Didn’t know they made it here, though. Guess we’ve just gotten lucky—or, unlucky, I guess. ‘F you don’t want your piece after you finish eating,” the words ring slightly to his own ears with the emphasis he tries to put on them, “then I’ll take it.”

As he unwraps his plastic fork and stabs at the wobbling confection, making sure to get some of the dollop of whipped cream decorating the top of the over-large slice, he watches Raleigh unfold the foil wrapping from his burger and take a bite. The kid’s soft groans and moans of happiness are music to his ears. They also make his pants suddenly feel three sizes too small. He shuts the to-go box of pie and places it on his lap, chewing idly, letting the sweetness flow across his tongue, and starts the car, starting when he glances at the clock.

“Well, I guess you can just continue to… enjoy that burger, kiddo,” he forces himself to laugh, though, really, it’s not that much of an effort: as much of a struggle as it is to not moan along with the kid, it’s also genuinely funny how much Raleigh enjoys food sometimes, “and I will refrain from savoring my delicious pie to drive us to the fireworks place.”

Yancy tosses his head back letting out a fake, breathy sigh, fighting the urge to smile even wider than he already is when the engine turns over; it’s seriously unfair just how _happy_ his brother cam make him sometimes simply by virtue of existing. “Alas, it is a sacrifice, but one I shall willingly endure. Unless, no,” he pauses for dramatic effect, “you wouldn’t… be willing to feed your poor manservant... would you?”

“Nngggh,” Comes the reply as Raleigh takes another big bite, trying to ignore the idea of Yancy as his manservant. “I’m gonna make love to this burger..” It was like he couldn’t get it into his mouth fast enough and he would miss it once he had. Maybe he should have ordered two. With his free hand he reaches into the bag for fries and happily crams them into his mouth as well. Heaven. This is heaven.

Another bite, another moan and he finally registers Yancy’s request, opening his eyes and looking over. Without thinking he reaches back in the bag and offers a curly fry. It’s a good one, the coveted spiral fry, but anything for his brother. Which is why he presses it to Yancy’s lips without hesitation.

And then he regrets it immediately when Yancy’s lips brush the tips of his fingers and he audibly gasps, trying to ignore the shiver and spark of electricity that sparks down his arm, quickly shoving the last few bites of burger into his mouth in an attempt to hide it.

This is getting fucking ridiculous.

But Yancy asked and though it feels almost dirty and selfish to agree, he does. Swallowing hard. “You want pie or fries?” Or me. Fuck. Shit, _fuck_.

It's almost mesmerizing the way Raleigh practically inhales his burger, mouth stretching wide to fit as much of it as possible. Yancy’s mind may or may not take advantage of the opportunity to wonder how those lips would feel, how they would _look_ , wrapped around his dick, how it would feel to have the muscles of Raleigh's throat swallowing down all he has to offer—

 _No_.

He can't think about that. Won't _let_ himself think about that. Besides, he has driving to concentrate on. Right. Because that's the most important reason.

But then Raleigh's fingers are at his mouth, one of his curly fries pushing past Yancy's lips. Yancy accepts it, and the distraction the hot, oily spiral offers. However, the distraction takes on a decidedly different tone when those same fingers actually brush against his the skin of his lips, and the only thing he can feel is a sensation akin to as if his entire face had been electrified, the tingling centering around his mouth. Vaguely, he’s aware of chewing, swallowing, licking his lips to savor the flavor of the grease and salt and—

It takes every ounce of willpower Yancy possesses to not drive them off the road when he realizes that the taste of his brother’s skin is mixed in with the taste of fried food. It sends a wave of _want_ through him, and it’s only through years of practice that Yancy keeps his entire body steady, his breathing unchanged. His focus narrows to the road for a moment before he’s aware of Raleigh asking him a question.

“Pie for now,” his voice catches, cracks, and he has to clear his throat before he continues. “You enjoy your fries, kid. After all, I’m sure you charmed a waitress into giving you extra, so you earned ‘em.”

And pie will keep his brother’s fingers away from his mouth. Because Yancy’s not convinced he could restrain himself from sucking the digits between his lips if given half a chance, the taste that is purely _Raleigh_ still exploding on his taste buds. His tongue slips from between his teeth to make a circular sweeping motion before he can stop it, chasing any remnants it can find.

“Besides, we’re almost there,” he adds when he spots signs advertising the fireworks tents they’re heading for, telling them they’re just another mile down the road. He glances over at Raleigh to see that his brother has finished his burger—christ, what is he, a vacuum?—and allows himself to grin. “Go on and feed me before all the whipped cream melts.”

The thought that the box is in his crotch, and that he’d put it there to hide the fact that he’s _still_ half-hard, flashes in his mind like an exploding neon sign. He wants to scream at himself, to take back what he’d said, but he can’t think of a way to do it that wouldn’t make him seem like a lunatic. All he can do is hope that his brother might feed him from his own box instead of the one currently nestled between Yancy’s thighs.

Then again, since when has the universe ever been that nice to him?

So he does the only thing he can: steels himself for the consequences of his own idiocy, mind scrambling for an excuse— _any_ excuse, _anything_ but the truth—in case Raleigh catches sight of his… predicament.

“Mmhm.” Comes Raleigh’s response, attention fixated on Yancy’s lips rather than the words coming out of them.

Oh—right. Right, the pie. He clears his throat and shakes his head a little, reaching, of course, for the pie in his brother’s lap.

Now it could be that Raleigh just isn’t paying attention, or it could be a small miracle or the universe finally saying _Hey Yancy, guess what, you’re catching a break today_ , but Raleigh doesn’t notice his brother’s semi. His attention is on the box and then, subsequently, the contents of the box. If he were after a good old fashion crotch oogle there were better places to get one. For now, He is happy to pick up where Yancy had left off and lift a bite of pie for him to eat.

He can’t resist the little airplane noise he makes in the process, flashing a smile to combat the echoing need threatening to consume him.

 _That’s right_ , he thinks, _open up. Open up good and wide for me_.

There are so many other things that thought could apply to right now and none of them were remotely alright. Raleigh realized there was a darkness in him from a very early age, but he has yet to figure out just what he should do about it. It is moments like these, nights like these, that have him ready to jump off a cliff. He’ll ride it out like he always does, but it would be a lie if he didn’t just kind of want to give up and go home and obsessively email his newest acquaintance.

Yancy makes a pleased humming sound around the pie Raleigh presents him, still laughing around the mouthful at the sounds Raleigh’d made while feeding him. Despite his laughter—or perhaps _because_ of it—his brother continues making childish noises while spoonfeeding him pie. Yancy actually laughs aloud at one point, nearly losing the mouthful of chocolate confection he’d been about to swallow.

For that one, small, glorious moment, he doesn’t worry. He doesn’t think about his now-deflated half-boner, or the way Raleigh’s face is shining with a kind of happiness that makes his heart want to beat out of his chest. He doesn’t think about the fact that every time his mind strays to thoughts of his brother, his stomach does nervous, half-terrified somersaults. He doesn’t think about how good his brother looks even with the added layer of his jacket, or the no-longer-so-mental image he’d gleaned of that one interruption, long ago, as it tries to interrupt his thoughts.

Instead, Yancy allows himself to bask in the warmth, in the _happiness_ , of being near Raleigh. And, for a moment, things feel normal, _right_ , with the two of them in that car, laughing together, two boxes of pie open between them once Yancy reminds Raleigh to eat his own slice. It’s almost as if the mounting tension, the creeping, inexorable explosion, that’s crawling towards them doesn’t exist. Hell, he doesn’t even allow himself to think about the fact that they’re only using one fork between them. Only the sparkling, _soaring_ depths of his brother’s gaze.

The last trace of chocolatey goodness is sliding down his throat just as he pulls into the lot, finding a spot and parking the car. As he steps out, he props an arm on top of his open door and grunts.

“Huh. Looks like a bigger turnout than last year. Three tents instead of one.”

He turns a mischievous look on his brother.

“What do you say we go pick some shit out, eh kid?”

“Oh _hell_ yes!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as you can see, this chapter is, eh, about three thousand words longer than the first chapter. So, pretty much, this is a quick note to let you all know that this is probably going to be a regular thing. That is, chapter lengths aren't likely to be very regular. It just depends on how the story ends up breaking up, and at what point we feel we've put too much down for a single chapter. 
> 
> That being said, enjoy!
> 
> Unbeta'd.

Raleigh is out of the car in an instant, mindful not to slam the door too hard with his excitement. He _loves_ fireworks. Everything from the smell of gunpowder and bright packaging to the nostalgia and adrenaline it summons.

Yancy is right about the place being bigger this year and as they make their way inside they’re greeted by literally thousands of fireworks ready to be collected up and trucked home. Raleigh looks over the various packs laid out on folding tables, idly running his fingers over the rockets and smoke bombs as he goes. The packs aren’t any good, not really, everyone knows that the _good_ stuff is at the back. The serious monsters you have to be an adult to purchase. And luckily for him, he is a bonafide adult.

“Oh..” He breathes after they finally make their way to the back of the final tent. “This is it. This is her..”

Sitting dead center on a small pedestal is a large cylinder a foot high and a foot wide. Painted red white and blue, she has a sexy vintage style pinup printed on the front.

“Gipsy Danger..” It rolls off his tongue like sex as he reads the carton. Nothing has ever felt more right. “Five minutes of full display.. 98BD Hyper-Torque Drivers, Blue Spark 4.1 surround canons and an Arc-9 shot reactor core finale. 500 grams of pyrotechnic content pushes the limits with a full 130 shots...oh _shit_ , Yancy…” He turns, eyes wide. Yancy will know what he’s about to say but it doesn’t stop him from giving the puppy eyes.

“ _Pleeease_?”

As soon as Raleigh’s eyes land on the half-kilo of brightly-wrapped gunpowder, Yancy can _feel_ any control he might’ve had on the situation completely slip away. Still, he allows himself to take in just how _adorable_ his brother can be when he actually _tries_. That’s not to say that he’s not normally adorable—although Yancy would probably be more likely to call him beautiful than adorable on any given day—but when he turns on those fucking eyes of his, well…

Yancy finds he just can’t say no.

He’s pretty sure Raleigh knows, too.

“Sure, Rals,” he lets out a long-suffering sigh, raising his eyes to the ceiling as a smile pulls at his lips, “whatever you want.”

He tells the kid to go pick out some other stuff, too, and lugs the monstrous firework—the last one on the shelf, even though the fourth isn’t for another few days—up to the counter. Along the way, he snags some sparklers, recalling nights of Raleigh burning afterimages of both their names into their retinas as he’d traced the letters in the darkening air. Also, on a whim, he grabs a few bang-snaps.

“Hi, can you hold these for us?” he makes his voice as polite as he possibly can while the girl behind the counter—probably somewhere in her late twenties—arches an eyebrow at him. “We’re gonna keep shopping, but, uh, I don’t want anyone else to grab them.”

“Sure,” she shrugs, putting down her book and moving the items behind the prefab counter. “That one’s been really popular this year. Lady Danger, we call her. Good choice.”

Yancy chuckles.

“Yeah, it looks pretty awesome. But my brother was actually the one who picked it out.”

“Well, your brother has a pretty keen eye.” She smiles as she speaks, revealing a silvery tongue piercing.

That thought sends a spike of cold fear down Yancy’s spine—he _knows_ she didn’t mean it that way, but still—and he widens his own smile to hide it, trying to push the feeling back as he forces out a laugh.

“I’d like to think so, yeah. Anyway,” he nods to the girl, checking for a nametag so he can properly thank her, but finding nothing, “uh, yeah, thanks. We’ll be back in a few.”

She nods back, eyebrows quirking up at the same time in acknowledgment, before she resumes her reading. Yancy moves over to one of the shelves near the counter where they have a bunch of the smaller boxes of fireworks, but instead pulls out his phone, checking his email.

Still no new messages.

He sighs, trying not to be disappointed as he drops the device back into his jacket pocket. Precariously, so as to not knock anything over, he turns to lean against the shelf, waiting for his brother.

“Yance, stop dicking around and help me!” the Becket younger calls from the other side of the nearest long table. He holds up two packets of rockets and weighs them in his hands. “Which ones do you think would be the loudest?”

He glances down and chews his bottom lip for a moment before choosing the shells in his right hand. Yancy looks distracted. Like _really_ distracted and he can’t say he isn’t also kind of antsy. They usually take hours in a place like this but they’ve been maybe twenty minutes. It seems a little like they’re both distracted.

“Nevermind.. Hey let’s just get these, okay?”

Raleigh has assembled a small pile and brings it over to the counter, eyeing his brother with interest as the clerk rings up the total and Raleigh fishes for his wallet.

“Ah—ah ah, no,” He says and holds a hand up before Yancy even has the chance to try to pay. “Burberry, seriously put your wallet away I don’t wanna hear it.” As though mentioning his last job explains it. Which, by all rights, it does.

But that at least busies them for a moment and it’s not until they’re walking back to the car with their treasures that Raleigh pipes up again.

“You okay, bro? You seem, uh,   _j'sais pas_..spaced out.”

The heat that flushes through Yancy’s entire body when his brother switches, for a split-second, to French whites out all thought from his mind, and he has to physically restrain himself from shuddering. It’s not like he has a language kink or anything like that. After all, before she died, their mother had taught them both the language; by all rights, Yancy is _better_ at it than his brother, if only because he’d had three years more tutelage—at least, that’s what he tells himself, but the truth is that Raleigh had always grasped new languages much faster than Yancy ever could.  No, it’s more the way Raleigh _sounds_ when he speaks other languages, French in particular.

That is, he sounds like sex on legs. His voice gets a high, lilting quality, like the words are literally floating out of him, and yet he somehow infuses each syllable with a raw sensuality that makes Yancy’s toes curl in his shoes. It’s only a kind of desperate self-preservation that allows him to actually process the question and try to formulate an answer that, he hopes, doesn’t give away his distraction.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I’m okay. I—” he rubs at his eyes, as if clearing sleep from them. “I guess I’m just kinda out of it today. Sorry, kid. S’not your fault.”

As soon as the words are out of Yancy’s mouth, they sound suspicious to even his own ears, and he can practically feel himself floundering.

“Yeah, no, totally not you. It’s just… this stupid group project. Fuckin’ kids, I swear. Don’t know how to do anything. Yeah, I, uh...”

He casts his eyes around, feeling a low, throbbing panic building in his gut. He knows that Raleigh _might_ buy that, but he might not. There have been other group projects, other annoying-as-shit group members, other people Yancy’d had to make nice with whom he would rant and rave about at home. But he’d never allowed them to affect him like this before. Likely because, well, it’s _not_ them affecting him. No, the sources of his current distraction are, to a lesser extent, in his pocket, but primarily standing in front of him, right now, speaking to him in ways that, whether he knows it or not, get right under Yancy’s skin in the most deliciously wrong ways.

(Yancy hasn’t fantasized about his brother’s fingers fisted in his hair,  pushing him down on his cock, gagging him on it, urging him to go further, to take more, in French. Hasn’t imagined what it would be like to have his brother buried deep inside of him, whispering absolute filth in his ear, the foreign syllables ghosting over his skin. No sir.)

“Thanks for getting everything,” he finally says, somewhat lamely, eyes falling to the bag in the kid’s hands, not meeting his brother’s gaze. “Ready to get out of here?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. Not really. Raleigh might give one. He’s not sure. All he knows is that his feet are carrying him towards the exit, his phone burning a hole in his pocket as he taps the plastic through his pants restlessly.

“Yeah,” Raleigh answers to both of Yancy’s questions, eyebrows gently knit as they make for the car. He doesn’t buy a word of whatever it is Yancy had just gibbered but he isn’t sure he should push.

He waits for his brother to unlock the doors so he can load their bounty into the trunk and steps around to the driver’s side.

“Do you want me to take over?” If Yancy was distracted or stressed maybe Raleigh should be the one driving. Responsible adult and all that. Yancy has the tendency to pile the weight of the world on his shoulders and slowly crumble beneath it until he snaps. Even now it’s difficult to get him to share the load, bound by some sense of duty and a lifetime of fierce devotion to his younger brother. But Raleigh isn’t a kid anymore. Sure he doesn’t always put two and two together and he can screw stuff up pretty fantastically, but he is capable and mostly functioning. He wishes there were a way to ease the pressure off.

His dark feelings aside, Raleigh just wants to support Yancy as much as he has been supported. They’re all they have and if Yancy keeps giving at this rate he’ll burn out and  have nothing left. Besides, Raleigh would hate himself if he somehow burnt his brother out. Like all he did was take and take and take-

“Yance, if something is bothering you..” He starts, hip checking the side of the car, arms gently crossed over his chest, lips slightly pursed as he faces his brother with worry. “You don’t have to keep it to yourself. You _know_ that, we’ve _talked_ about this.”

Okay, so maybe he was gonna push it after all. But as fail as Raleigh could be at taking care of himself? Yancy was just as bad. Maybe worse. Actually definitely worse if he didn’t check his selflessness.

Yancy, for his part, remains silent as he slots the key into the driver’s side door, unlocking the other doors and popping the trunk once he has it open. Maybe he moves a bit slower than he usually does as he heads back towards his brother, taking the bags from the kid’s hands—he most definitely ignores the way the brief brush of skin against skin sends his heart fluttering because _Jesus_ he is not some fucking thirteen year old—and placing them in the trunk. Maybe it’s because he needs a second to think. Maybe he still doesn’t know what to say even as he brings the trunk lid down with a muted thud.

Truthfully, he should’ve been expecting it. It’s not like the two of them usually dance around their issues, so, really, Yancy is more surprised that it’d taken the kid this long to just come out and ask. He knows he’s been acting weird—knows his brother is neither blind nor stupid. Hell, if Raleigh were behaving the way he is, Yancy would’ve confronted him about it before they even left the freaking apartment. Or before they left the tent, since he’s fairly certain he was _mostly_ normal back at the house.

Eventually, the silence mounts, and he knows his brother won’t be satisfied without _some_ sort of answer.

“I mean, yeah, okay, there is some stuff bothering me,” the admission doesn’t hurt nearly as much as he’d thought it would, “but it’s not anything you can help with, kid. I’m sorry. I just need some time to work some stuff out, ‘kay? It’s nothing to do with you, so no worries.”

He pulls the keys out of his pocket where he’d stashed them a moment ago, the metal jangling, and tosses them backhand to Raleigh as he moves towards the passenger’s side.

“But yeah, if you wanna drive, that’d be great.” A smirk as he climbs in, settling himself and handing over the keys. He has to rearrange the seat so that it can accommodate him instead of his brother’s freakishly long legs, because, seriously, it’s not fair that he’s the older of the two of them yet he’s a good three inches shorter. “Just try not to crash, alright?”

“I’ll try to restrain myself.” Raleigh answers, but it’s hollow where his usual humor would be. He takes the keys and slides in, taking a tiny little bit of joy in scooting the driver’s seat back and adjusting the mirrors. Yancy is and always has been better at him in a lot of things, but height isn’t one of them. So there’s that. Which is nice.

The joy passes in the blink of an eye as he slides the key into the ignition, pensive as he pulls out and turns the car back towards home. The car stinks of cold fries he abandoned in favor of pie. They make it maybe five miles before he speaks, having taken that time to form something that was at least potentially soothing.

“You know,” He starts, keeping his voice measured and smooth. “Even if it doesn’t have anything to do with me? Bottling it up isn’t going to help you any. You can’t carry the world in silence, Yance. Even though you think you can.”

A beat and he ventures on.

“Because like it or not? It does affect me. _You_ affect me.” He has to stop then and wet his lips as that confession carries several layers. “And besides that? You’re my _brother_. If you can’t bitch about stupid shit to me then who can you bitch to?”

“I…” The truth of his brother’s words stings, and Yancy can’t help the abortive twitch his entire body makes. Outside the window, the treeline slides by unceasingly, the car carrying them back home under Raleigh’s guidance. “I, its… it’s not that simple, kid.”

“Isn’t it?” He asks and glances over, taking his eyes off the road to give Yancy the look they both know means _cut the shit_. “Look,” He turns back to the road and signals into the fast lane. Suddenly he doesn’t really want to be in the car for very long. “I’m not gonna to push you but whatever it is? We’ve been through worse. I’m here for you.”

Another glance over to the passenger side, though his grip on the wheel tightens.

“I _know_ , Rals,” there’s an almost desperate tugging deep within Yancy’s chest, clawing at his throat, as if the secret he’s spent so long harboring is trying to forcibly climb out; he crams it back down with a ruthlessness born from years of practice. “I know, I do. It’s just…”

He’s not looking at his brother. He can’t. He can’t see the way he knows Raleigh’s brow is pinched, those crystal-blue eyes that haunt his dreams gazing at him with such _hurt_. Because he knows the second he sees that, all the practice he has won’t make a difference. The instant he has actual, physical confirmation that his secret is hurting his brother, it’ll come tumbling out on its own. So, instead, he focuses on the trees. On watching them fly past the car as it goes faster and faster. He picks one, watches it go sailing past, before his eyes jump forward, single another one out, and the process repeats itself. The repetition is soothing, even if his heart still feels like his lungs are trying to crush it. After several minutes of this—he’s sure his brother is losing patience with him; then again, this is Raleigh, who can have the patience of a saint when he wants—he spots a familiar pine: the top half is split down the middle, the two halves bowing away, dry wood pointing at the sky like jagged, splintered teeth. The tree had been struck by lightning during a particularly violent storm about two years ago, and one half of it had subsequently died; the other half, though, is alive and well, and has continued to grow higher and higher, leaving the decaying husk of its former self behind.

Yancy knows this tree because it’s only about a mile from their house. He sees it every day during his commute. He feels it’s appropriate, in a way: representative of him and Raleigh. He’s stuck, decaying, _broken_ —has nowhere to go except stay at his brother’s side and watch the kid flourish.

“It’s not something I can really talk about at the moment,” he finally resigns himself to responding, the silence having become oppressive. He looks down from the window, gaze landing on his hands where his fingers are tangling amongst themselves in nervous agitation. This is the closest he’s ever come to admitting any of this to Raleigh. His pulse pounds in his ears as the silence overtakes them once again, though he’s quick to drown it out again.

“I’m still kind of processing it all, to be honest. It’s… hard,” understatement of the century, he thinks wrily to himself, “but, please believe me, kid: if I needed your help or needed someone to talk to, I’d talk to you. Please, just… believe that, if nothing else.”

Maybe those last words come out sounding almost like begging.

Maybe… maybe he is begging.

And what can Raleigh do but leave it? This isn’t the time or place to get into a fight. Not on the road, not going 65 with a head full of his own drama as well as his brother’s. Yancy doesn’t want his help. Fine. And while that’s total bullshit he knows when a conversation is over.

At least for now.

So he grits his teeth and sets his jaw. “Yeah, fine.” He supplies, though it is clipped. It has to be or he would let loose with a torrent of _this is such bull, you can tell me literally anything in the entire world_. Yancy said he was processing...and whatever it is is hard. Which is shitty. Furthermore there is apparently nothing he can do. Awesome. He’s super useful. Way to be there when your brother is hurting and won’t tell you why, Rals. You’re doing a stand up job of being there for him.

But then the voice in the back of his head pipes up. The one that thinks. The logicy one. He hates that voice. _You’re such a hypocrite_ it says, sounding a little like Yancy, himself. What did it say his inner monologue was his brother? _You’re hiding things, too, liar._

“But you’re okay?” A broad question. “I mean, it isn’t money or anything? Because we’re actually doing okay and—”

“No! No,” Yancy practically shouts, head whipping around, eyelids prickling with how wide they’ve been flung, “It’s not a money thing, kid. No, we’re fine.” He snorts lightly, looking down again; the few half-seconds of seeing Raleigh’s face almost undo what little control he has left. “We could probably both not work and be okay for the next four to six months, depending on how careful we were. It’s, no,“ he shakes his head, gazing at the floor again, “it’s not a money thing, kid, I promise.” _If only it were that simple_. “Exit’s right up here, by the way. You’ll need to get a lane over at least.”

And, okay, maybe it’s hard for him to stop being a big brother, even in the middle of… A talk? An argument? Whatever the hell this is.

“I know our exit, Yancy,” Raleigh bites back and glances over his shoulder before swerving across two lanes for the turn off, his annoyance translating into his maneuvers. He’s speeding, hardly slowing as they get onto the ramp and take a hard left turn through the green light that shuffles them back into suburban traffic. It’s only then he slows down to a mind numbing 35 miles an hour.

Thoughts race through his head and he wonders if maybe it really is him and Yancy just isn’t saying anything. Maybe— _oh shit_ —maybe Yancy knows. Maybe he knows and he just doesn’t know how to bring it up so he’s being...whatever. It hits Raleigh like a hammer to the chest and he can’t help but well up with panic.

Another part of him is just screaming for Yancy to figure his shit out because he’s been weird for weeks and only getting worse. Raleigh only just puts that together and steals another glance at his brother once they pull into the parking lot outside the building. Why hadn’t he seen it all before? Why hadn’t they been spending time together? Why had it taken him this long? Oh. that’s right. He’s been avoiding him because he doesn’t seem to be able to control his dick in the presence of his older brother and that is a Big Problem.

Raleigh cuts the engine but stays where he is for a moment. “Fine, be that way. You don’t wanna talk, that’s your malfunction.” He says when he finally unbuckles and gets out to retrieve the fireworks. “But you’re driving me friggin nuts, Yance.”

Really, he has no right to be mad at Yancy. Everyone is entitled to their secrets and if something is wrong and he needs time to think about it then fine, that’s fair. But on the other hand if something is wrong then it’s Raleigh’s job to help him fix it. Yancy has always been the fixer of everything. Always able to piece together whatever it was they needed. Able to weather the immense grief and pressure and strain of their formative years. Even when the world was ending, Yancy managed to fix it. Everything but his own problem, apparently. And his stubbornness was preventing him from even talking about it with the one person who knows him best in the world. Does feeling this way make him the world’s biggest hypocrite? Yes. Does it stop him? No.

And it’s that—the frustration and confusion and _sadness_ he can hear in Raleigh’s voice—more than anything that makes him snap. Not in an angry way, but like a wooden beam that’s been twisted in different directions, slowly, inexorably, until finally it can’t take it anymore. Because that, right there, whether the kid knows it or not, is his one and only soft spot, the one thing that will crumble any resolve he might have and force him to give in: hurting his brother. And, for whatever reason, this is hurting Raleigh. He drops his head, using the heels of his hands to rub at his eyes, clenching his jaw until he can almost hear his teeth grinding. It’s just because he doesn’t want to look at his brother and make it worse for himself. That’s all. His palms aren’t wet or anything.

“Raleigh,” the word is soft, the kid’s full name feeling odd on his tongue as he calls out towards his brother’s retreating form. He doesn’t say anything else for a moment, trying to calm the suddenly-racing heartbeat in his chest, pulse pounding so hard he can _feel_ his entire body quiver with it. “It’s… There’s… I’m interested in someone— _seriously_ interested—and he’s not...he’s got no idea, okay? I’m pretty sure he barely even thinks about me that w—”

Sudden panic floods through his veins, and Yancy clamps his mouth shut so quickly that there’s a flash of pain and a sudden coppery taste across his tongue. His fingertips press into the skin of his face hard enough to bruise.

 _Shit_.

Loving his brother has become so much a part of his life for the past seven to eight years that it’s only now that his mind registers one very important fact: this is the first time he’s ever told his brother that he finds men attractive—or, if nothing else, one specific man. All the people he’s ever openly dated—all three messy, completely defective relationships—have all been with women.

Well. That’s one way to add, ‘Hey, bro, I like guys, too. Hope that’s cool. Hope you don’t hate me. If not for the linking-guys thing, then for the not-telling-you thing.’

Fucking _shit_.

Way to go, Yancy, he tells himself. Way to fucking go. Why not just tell him the rest?

The panic ices, crystallizes, like needle jabs throughout his entire body, and a pained whimper works its way out of his mouth.

Or not.

And then the whole moment freezes. Raleigh is out of the car but leaning in with his arm resting on the door, looking at his brother and listening to whatever explanation he’s about to be given when Yancy not only finally gives in but he gives in and drops not one but _two_ bombs at the same time.

He needs a moment to process, shocked still. He doesn’t even breathe.

Finally, Raleigh lets out the air he didn’t realize he was holding, his whole stance dropping. Any aggression, any frustration, melts away and his look of annoyance drops into something between sympathy and understanding.

“Oh, _Yancy_..” He breathes and gets back into the car, kneeling on the seat facing his brother and tugging him as close as he can given the awkward position. Raleigh unclicks the seat belt and pulls his brother’s head against his chest, moving to wrap his arms around the other’s shoulders.

He gets it. His brother is in love with someone who doesn’t know he exists. A _male_ someone and—wow. Just. Shit, wow. He races for something to say, instantly transported back to the age of sixteen when he had finally caved in and told his brother he was gay. It was something Raleigh had always known about himself. It started as him knowing _something_ but not knowing what the something was, and then he knew he was different, and that difference wasn’t bad it just...was what it was. Still, it felt like something he should keep to himself, especially as it was just the two of them and, you know, you hear things at school. You’re surrounded by the bigotry on all sides by kids who don’t even know what they’re saying but it still _affects you_ and suddenly you realize that your difference? It’s bad. It gets worse when you get older and your hormones go insane and suddenly things that didn’t matter, _really_ matter. You notice everything and anyone and between thinking Jeff in world history has a cute ass and awkward gym class boners everything, absolutely _everything,_ is a trap designed to humiliate and challenge you and everything you are. So then not only is your body going insane and making you the most physically repulsive creature on earth, but you are also challenged to figure out who you are, where you stand, and what you want to do for the rest of your life. No pressure.

But he’d gotten through it. _Yancy_ had gotten him through it. His anchor, his _everything_. And for a long time Raleigh wasn’t sure if he loved his brother purely because they were close in every single way and there was nothing but respect and admiration and support between them, or if there was something more. Some dark, blurry line that crossed the boundary between familial love and sexual love. It’s a no man’s land Raleigh knows well and it beats at him like a tide against the cliffs—slowly eroding everything he is grain by tiny grain.

Those feelings had grown together side by side and, try as he might to separate them, it was almost impossible and he didn’t know why. So he did the only thing he could think to and, with the support of his brother—oh the irony—came out to his friends and started...experiencing what the world had to offer.

The night he’d told Yancy he’d spent almost three hours building himself up and bawling his eyes out into a pillow, crippled with insecurity. When there wasn’t any more to cry he’d taken several deep breaths and paced his room until his heart didn’t feel like it was quite ready to explode before quietly padding out to the living room where Yancy had been doing homework.

“Yance, I...” He’d started, nervously holding one of his arms—then just that little bit too long for his body. The point when he was just starting to grow and everything hurt and he fell over all the time. His brother had turned immediately, as if knowing by instinct that something was wrong. He’d put down his book and pursed his lips but Raleigh had taken the chance to just blurt it out. “—I think I’m gay.” A pause. “I mean—I mean, I’m gay.”

And he’d received nothing but love and support. Yancy didn’t push him away like he had been so terrified might happen. He didn’t abandon him, didn’t leave him like every single other person in his life. Who Raleigh chose to love was his own business and it didn’t make Yancy love him any less.

It’s that feeling Raleigh tries to harness now, kneeling in the car outside their apartment, eyes closed, face pressed into his brother’s hair, one hand raising to cup Yancy’s cheek. He tries not to think about how soft his hair is or the scent of shampoo and _Yancy_ that he finds so intoxicating. There’s no room for that right now. Right now there’s only love for his brother. Love and acceptance and understanding.

“Why didn’t you tell me...”

Raleigh breaks him.

Not completely, mind, but, when his brother unclips him from the car and pulls him in, Yancy’s hands reach up to grip the strong arms holding him, pressing down with his chin. Tears leak out, because, _shit_ , was this what Raleigh had felt like, all those years ago? Like he’s a book whose pages have been flung open, ripped out, and scattered for all to see? Like the man holding him is the only stable thing left in the world because everything seems to have tilted on its head?

Raleigh breaks him, and yet still holds him together. Draws him close. Runs a hand down his cheek in comfort. _Keeps him whole_.

Yancy may or may not fall a little more in love with him. If that were possible, that is.

Yet, in spite of all that, the irony is enough to send him into hysterics. He manages, somehow, to reign himself in, only letting out a watery chuckle. Distantly, he wonders when he’d started crying.

“Do you really have to ask, kid?” The words contain maybe a hint of accusation, but Raleigh’s been through this—well, part of this, anyway—and he finds himself thinking ruefully that if _anyone_ should understand, it’d be his brother. Then again, Raleigh might _not_ understand, given that it wasn’t likely Yancy would to drive him away because he happened to like guys as well—not unless the kid was a complete hypocrite, and their parents had raised them better than that. Even so, there’s a massive step between saying “I like guys” and “By the way, the only guy I like is you, the person who happens to be, y’know, my little brother.”

A massive step, indeed.

Still, he really doesn’t want Raleigh to think he’s angry or doesn’t welcome the comfort—truthfully, he revels in it, in the closeness, in the smell of his brother’s body wash as it wafts off his skin and the sound of the kid’s heartbeat where his ear is smushed to Raleigh’s chest. Which is why he adds somewhat ruefully,, “I mean, you’ve noticed that I haven’t dated anyone in years, right? S’not like there’s anything to tell, really. It’s not gonna change any time soon, either.”

The response is a snort Raleigh isn’t quite able to hold in.

“Yeah, I noticed.” And he knows why Yancy never mentioned it, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t stupid as hell.

He laughs, moving his hand from his brother’s cheek to stroke the back of his neck.

“You are such a dumbass, you know that?”

“Yeah, yeah, fuck you, too.”

There’s no real heat to the words, and Yancy can’t hold in the laugh that bubbles from within his chest as he sniffles lightly. His brother’s hand on his neck is warm, welcome, and he wants nothing more than to sink back into the touch. He’s pretty sure his body shifts a little so that Raleigh’s fingertips are pushing at his skin, dimpling it slightly, but then again it could’ve been his brother moving to maybe get more comfortable or something; he’s honestly not sure at this point.

With a tilt of his head upward and back, catching sight of Raleigh out of his peripheral vision, Yancy grins wetly and fires back, “It takes one to know one, kid.”

“Don’t I know it.”

If only it were this simple.

“Yance, look at me.” Raleigh says and pulls a little so they can look each other in the eye though he keeps his hands where they are and settles, faces only inches apart.

“You? Are exactly who you are supposed to be.” Words someone important had said to him in a very similar situation many years ago. “And you are gonna be just fine. I’m just sorry it took so long.”

He can’t deny thinking that maybe, just maybe his own coming out would have been easier if it was the two of them together. Then again, the past is in the past so it doesn’t matter. Just like the urge to lean in those final few inches and connect them lip to lip is almost overwhelming. Instead, he smiles and runs his hand through his brother’s hair, a smooth motion with both hands that stop to rest on either side of his neck.

Without thinking, as seems to be par for the course for him, Raleigh leans in and places a gentle kiss on his brother’s forehead. He doesn’t stop to wonder if it’s weird. He doesn’t stop to gawk at how dangerous it is. The Beckets are tactile creatures and although it’s self-imposed torture to actually _kiss_ him and know nothing will come of it, he wants to. He wants to give that affection and reassurance. _I’m here for you. I love you._

Yancy’s breath catches in his throat as the words he’d told Raleigh several years ago, when their positions had been reversed, wash over him. His brother is _right there_ , inches away, and Yancy couldn’t look away even if he wanted to. He’s drowning in those eyes, in the sincerity he can practically _feel_ that’s swimming in their depths, and he finds himself wishing idly that it didn’t take a crisis for them to be this close anymore.

All throughout their childhood and into their adulthood, it hadn’t been uncommon to find the two of them curled up together somewhere—the couch, the  floor, a bed, the swing that used to be on the porch before it broke the summer after Yancy had turned fifteen—just talking. Sharing. Being together. Raleigh and Yancy had always been affectionate, physically. It was something their parents had encouraged, if only, Yancy’s sure, because they didn’t want their sons to grow up hating each other like so many siblings did. In fact, rather than “go to your rooms until you’ve both calmed down,” it was much more common to hear Domonique or Richard tell one or both of them, “Go hug your brother and make up.” If it were Dominique, then there would usually be an additional, “I’ll not have this nonsense in my house.”

But then their mother had died. Their father had left. And, though Yancy had already known what the warm rushing in his gut meant every time he held Raleigh close, he suddenly found that he _needed_ their time together in a way he hadn’t before. Needed in a way that was wrong. Needed it in a way he refused to allow himself.

So, he’d pulled away.

Not completely. He wouldn’t— _couldn’t_ —do that to himself, not to mention that he would _never_ do that to Raleigh. But even so, he’d purposefully limited their contact. Oh, sure, they were still probably more tactile than most brothers, but it was still lesser compared to how they used to be.

Sometimes, Yancy missed it.

The press of Raleigh’s lips against his forehead, his younger brother’s hands cradling his skull,  brings all those memories back. And, for a moment, Yancy allows himself to act without thinking. He pushes himself up a bit and presses his forehead to Raleigh’s, the two of them sharing air for a few seconds before he pulls back, not willing to take more than that—not sure if he would be able to control himself if he did. He can almost hear the words his brother isn’t saying, so he breathes out a soft, “Thanks, Rals. Love you too.”

 _Just not in the way you mean it, kiddo_ , his mind whispers.

His face burns immediately, and his heart rate, which had calmed under Raleigh’s ministrations, picks back up. But he’s still smiling, even if it feels brittle, cracked. He lets go of his brother’s arm to reach up for the oh-shit handle, snagging it with his fingertips and pulling himself upright, feeling cold when the warmth of Raleigh’s body vanishes.

“Alright, chick-flick moment over,” he clears his throat, and realizes belatedly that his fingers are tracing over the spots on his neck where his brother’s hands had just been. “Pop the trunk and lets get everything inside.”

He’s got the door open and has stepped out before Raleigh can say anything.

The Becket younger follows his brother’s lead and pops the trunk as he was told, climbing out and locking the doors behind them. He follows towards the apartment, mind awash with questions and sudden revelations. He wonders how he never put it together for himself, the real reasons why Yancy didn’t bring this up sooner, what his reasons might have been for trying so hard to hide it from him. But most of all he is dying to know who the guy his brother likes _is_. The need is followed very closely by the need to get a baseball bat and beat the fucker’s head in for not appreciating the most decent human being on the entire fucking planet.

“So...this guy,” he ventures, following Yancy to the door.

“Rals,” Yancy sounds exhausted. “Sorry but.. Can we just..please.”

“Oh..yeah. Sure.” A beat. “Sorry.”

“No no, don’t be. I just. I don’t really want to go there. Not right now, okay? It’s been a long day and—”

“—yeah, no. Totally. I get it.” Raleigh cuts in, shuffling the huge firework in his arms so he can unlock the door. And boy does he ever get not wanting to talk about unrequited love. Oh the irony. The sick, twisted irony.

They get in and the house still smells like spaghetti sauce. Yancy remembers that the oven has been on this entire time and quickly goes to correct the oversight and put any leftovers in the fridge, his brother putting their spoils on the coffee table.

“Hey Yance, I’m gonna get back on my paper, okay?”

“Yeah kiddo, sure. Don't work too hard, alright?

Raleigh nods and makes for his room, but stops and leans into the kitchen portion of the open plan great room.

“Thank you. For this. For..” Everything, follows silently. For trusting him, for finally opening up and letting it out. Yancy must have been holding on to this for _years_ and while he wishes this had happened sooner, maybe it’s a good thing it hadn’t. At least from the little selfish piece of shit voice in his head. The one that says they last few years would have been much more difficult knowing his brother likes cock but not his cock. Never his cock. Before...at least thinking Yancy was straight put up a bit of a buffer but now.. Not that Raleigh isn’t happy for him. He is. He is so happy Yancy is finally admitting and owning...

“Yeah.” Yancy nods and gives a small smile, moving towards the hall. “I’ll be in my room if you need anything, okay?”

“Sure,” Raleigh answers, trailing behind. They share another small smile before disappearing into their respective rooms.

Raleigh closes the door and takes a deep breath. Then another. He flops down into bed and stares at the ceiling, listening to the empty room. Above him he can hear his neighbor walking around and the occasional pitter patter of animal nails on wooden flooring. A sound Raleigh knows to be John and his german shepherd Boomer, both of whom are very sweet. John had loaned Raleigh a ladder once and he occasionally comes to say hello to Boomer if he sees them out in the tenant’s common space.

He listens to the faint sounds of music drifting through the walls from Yancy’s room. He listens to the occasional whoosh of air through the vents.

None of it distracts him from everything that’s just happened, but he lays there for a moment longer all the same.

Finally, he huffs and pulls himself back up, sitting crosslegged on the bed and pulling his laptop over. He is surprised to see a new message waiting for him and he all but devours it, tongue poking out between his lips ever so slightly as he reads, brow furrowed with concentration. This person thought he’d scared Raleigh off, or perhaps it was just eagerness at finding someone who knew what it was like, but after tonight? Raleigh wasn’t about to leave them hanging. He has the feeling he will come to need them.

 

 _[[ To:_ _ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

 _From:_ _lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

**_re:I saw your post…_ **

_Hey, sorry about that, I was out of the house. No worries, you haven’t scared me off, I promise. I think I’m just reeling, a little. From everything. Truth be told, I think I have been for a while. This whole ‘thing’ isn’t a fetish for me. I guess I should preface and say that it’s basically standard being what I am makes me a sick fuck, but I don’t really feel like this extends into the world of fetishism. I’m not attracted to him because he is my brother, nor do I get off on that (it’s gross, that’s not lost on me), but rather it’s because he is the most genuine, honest, compassionate human being I have ever met. He is good at everything I suck at and likewise I rock at everything he sucks at. Risking the cheese factor, here, we’re perfectly equal in contrasts and compliments. He is my other half in every way. He’s smart and funny and would give you the shirt off his back to make you happy. Plus.. well I guess this makes me sound like an even bigger pervert but he is straight up gorgeous. He always has been, even if he doesn’t always see it. It worries me, because he is such a giver and he never takes time for himself. He gives and gives and gives and I’m scared if he ever did find out? He might try to give that to me even if he doesn’t want it._

_And that would destroy me. Us. Everything. How could I even…?_

_I guess it’s sad, but he’s all I have in the entire universe and I love him with every inch of my being. As family, that goes without saying, but also more. There’s no possible way I can tell him and I think it might actually be killing me but what else can I do? If I tell him he’ll just blame himself and we’ll never be the same. I can’t lose him._

_I guess now it’s my turn to scare you off, huh._

_I almost kissed him tonight. I don’t know what came over me. I feel...dangerous, almost. Like I can’t even be in the same room with him or I might do something. I realize that sounds rapey and I don’t mean it like that, honest to God. Today was hard. Today was really hard. He’s interested in someone. Really interested in someone. I want him to be happy and find a way to make it work or find someone who will appreciate him the way I do, but it kills me to think about him with someone else. Before it wasn’t so bad because he was mostly dating women but now he’s interested in a guy it’s so much worse because I will never be that guy. And I know I should be happy for him and supportive and everything he deserves, but I can’t help it. And it hurts. It hurts so badly. And I just keep thinking ‘how can I be so selfish?’ I’m already a terrible person and a shitty brother for being in this situation in the first place, how can I let him down like this, too? I know what you mean about trust and not wanting to betray it. The obvious things like walking around half naked are the worst. Does it make me gross that sometimes I parade around a little? He doesn’t give a shit but I do... God, he doesn’t even have to be naked. But I think I would hate myself if he didn’t even trust me to be natural around me. It’s like that cliche when a straight guy finds out you’re not and then automatically thinks you’ll try to make a move? Only so...so so much worse. For so many reasons._

_Sorry, That was a hell of a rant and probably way TMI. I guess I should come with a warning label: complete basketcase, approach with caution, don’t allow near socially well adjusted human beings._

_Anyway, thanks for listening. You’re really the only person I can talk to.  ]]_

 

Send. Followed by an afterthought beaten into the keyboard less than a minute later.

 

 _[[To:_ _ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

 _From:_ _lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

**_re:I saw your post…_ **

_Not that I’m implying you have to talk to me. Honestly, no pressure.  ]]_

 

_*_

 

Yancy wakes the next morning to a little red five hovering over the email icon on his phone. Grumbling lightly to himself about overbearing bosses as he stalks out of his room and down the hallway towards the bathroom, he comes up short when he realizes that two of the new emails are from his forum email. Hurriedly, he closes the door and plants himself on the edge of the tub, reading the new messages. Once he's done, he doesn't even think about it, just hits the reply button and turns his phone sideways so he has access to a less cramped keyboard; he may or may not snort at his contact's second message.

 

 _[[ To:_ _lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

 _From:_ _ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

**_re:I saw your post…_ **

_First of all, I find it highly amusing that you think I’m a “socially well adjusted human being.” Thanks for that. I really needed the laugh after my day yesterday._

_On a more serious note, no, it's not like it's a fetish for me, either. I know there are some people out there who get off on that sort of thing, but, y'know, it's just not for me, to be honest._

_Like with you, the reason I love my brother isn't_ because _he's my brother. Although, yeah, that definitely helps. In the sense that it means I already thought of him as close, though, not anything else. Hell, we were always close as kids. But then, well, I don't like to talk about it too much, but lets just say that there was some family drama and now our parents are no longer in our lives. More to the point, they're both dead. There's a part of me that, yeah, like you said about yourself, is sick and completely fucked, because, as much as I loved them and miss them like hell every day, there's always a part of me that's happy that they don't have to ever see what I've become. Though, really, that's neither here nor there. The_ point _is that we were always close as kids, and then once we were on our own—really, I won't bore you with the orphans story; it's not interesting and everyone always make this huge deal about it—it just got so much worse. I mean. I knew before that. But after?_

_After, when we were forced to take care of each other, constantly be in each other's space? Yeah. No, it got bad. It's only gotten worse as the years have gone by._

_I know what you mean. I don't want him to force himself to do anything for me. Because, yeah, he's always had a mind of his own, but at the same time he's got such a huge heart and he tends to listen to it more than he probably should. Every time he dates—and, god, don't even get me started on the twenty different kinds of hell that is—it always ends up being me he'll come to when it doesn't work out. And as gratifying as that is, it's torture to have him so close, if only for a moment, and then lose him right after. Sorry, I'm getting on a tangent, here. The point I'm trying to make is that he's also the kind of person who would probably try it out, if only because we've never really been apart, and not because of any genuine feelings or anything. And that? That would just be too much. I refuse to ruin the only good thing really left in my life. Or to even_ think _about making him feel like he has to do something like this just for me. He’s never going to want me that way, and I fucking know it. So, y’know, you’d think I wouldn’t waste time hoping. Right. Because that’s worked out so far. Eight years later..._

 _Oh. Hey. I didn’t realize you were a guy, too. Solidarity, bro. Why have just incestuous feelings when you can go for a double whammy and have_ gay _incestuous feelings, am I right?_

 _Anyway, I’m sorry to hear about your rough day. But hey, I mean, on the bright side? If he’s taken—in a manner of speaking...I guess “emotionally unavailable” would be a better term—I suppose, at least, if it were me, it would make it easier? Easier than knowing that my brother is single, gorgeous, and hasn’t dated a single girl since he came out.  I think it’s the hope. The hope is what really gets to me. Because even when I tell myself that there isn’t any, even though I fucking_ know _that we’ll never be anything more than what we are, on those nights where I lie in my own bed and just want to curl up and not exist, there are only two things that keep me from packing a bag and walking out: him, and the hope. Him, because I would never,_ ever _do that to him. The hope, mostly that, if he ever found out, he wouldn’t instantly hate me. But even then, there’s a small part of my head that’s always reminding me that, y’know, if he did feel this way? It’s not like it’d cause a sexuality crisis or anything._

_I’m not saying that I legit think it’ll happen. After eight years of false hope, well...you learn to ignore it. To laugh at it, actually. To laugh at yourself for being such a fucking idiot. Case in point: when you first emailed me, my first thought was that you were him. It was the scariest fucking moment of my life, and yet, in a way, it would’ve almost been a relief. But. Y’know. Then I saw what you’d written. And I had to laugh at myself because there’s no fucking way. But, no, it’s little things like that: little moments where my mind will still try to tell me it might happen. They’re torture. At least, by now, after so many years of practice, it’s a lot easier to ignore. Or destroy, I suppose._

_For my part, my day was...emotional. I was inches—fucking_ inches _—away from telling him how I felt. That’s… honestly, that’s never happened before. It was fucking terrifying. Hell, I apparently started to fucking_ cry _. And, so, you know, of course he noticed, and of_ course _he asked what was wrong. And I just… I choked. I didn’t tell him, you’ll be happy to know, but it was… close._

 _Oh man, I wish I had half the balls you do, though. I’ve never really been one for showing off, and besides, my brother is fucking gorgeous—like,_ model _gorgeous, I swear I’m not making that up—so I typically leave any household near-nudity to him. If my brother ever saw me like that… actually, I don’t know what I would do, to be honest. I mean, okay, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help me god, yadda yadda yadda? He’s seen me coming out of the shower and stuff, but I don’t do it on purpose. If anything, I try to get to my room as fast as possible. Mostly because, well. Between you and me, my brother’s got the kind of looks that are hard to not react to. So, whenever we pass each other on the way into or out of the shower, I have to run to my room because I typically have a, ah, growing problem, if you know what I mean. Which, you know, if he caught sight of, would probably be the most awkward conversation we’ve ever had. Well, one of them. Either that or he would try to be the understanding asshole he always is, and, I don’t know. That’d probably be worse._

_So how’s that for TMI? Sorry to just kind of word-vomit all this all over you. I guess I got a bit carried away. And, oh, shit, my brother’s at the door. I’ll talk to you later. I hope._

_(Yeah, no, no pressure. You’re the only person who understands me anyway, and it’s nice to have a friend who gets it. Not…not that I’m saying we’re definitely friends or anything, but, you know, if you’d like...I guess it’d be nice? Alright, seriously, I’m going to stop typing now.)_

_P.S.: Please not pugs. But maybe alpacas? I've been told they're actually pretty popular around here. Really good wool for thread and stuff, apparently._

_P.P.S.: Maybe dachshunds instead? Fuckin' wiener dogs, man._ _]]_

 

With a start, Yancy realizes that he’s been in the bathroom, typing on his phone’s screen, for the better part of twenty minutes. Which, in the normal scheme of things, is his allotted bathroom time in the morning.

“Shit, sorry, Rals,” he shouts through the door in answer to his brother’s rapping knuckles that had been followed by a few of what sounded like kicks, “lost track of time. I’ll be out in five.”

Yancy strips as quickly as he can, cranking the water all the way on and jumping in, closing the curtain behind him. He ignores the way the water goes from freezing cold to scalding hot, because, right now, he doesn’t have the luxury of a necessarily comfortable shower. He washes himself as quickly as he possibly can, towels off, and then, skin still cherry pink from the near-burns he’d inflicted upon himself, he wraps his towel around his waist and gathers up his sleep clothes and phone, shivering at the rush of cool air that strikes his too-hot skin when he opens the door.

“C’mon man.” Raleigh groans, kicking at the door again.

Yancy emerges flushed, steam from the shower billowing out around him. The light from the bathroom streams through from behind and for a moment—just a moment—he looks ethereal. The words die in Raleigh’s throat and he clicks his mouth shut, swallowing and moving to the side to get out of the way, lost in his brother’s damp hair and sculpted shoulders. The stray water droplets making their way across his collarbone. Raleigh wants to lick them up.

“N-no worries..” He manages. “Thought maybe you fell asleep in there or something.”

“Nah, just got distracted reading something.”

It’s not exactly a lie, which is Yancy’s justification for fighting back the small tug of guilt in his gut. He slides past Raleigh, taking care to make sure he doesn’t accidentally brush up against his brother, and calls over his shoulder, “Hey, you need a ride? I have a lab at nine, micro after, and then work for the rest of the day.”

It makes him feel kind of like a bad older brother, but Yancy’s never been really good at memorizing other people’s schedules; his own is enough to worry about. And with the unpredictability of Raleigh’s work, well… owning two cars had become, eventually, a necessity. They carpool whenever they can to save on gas, but some days it just isn’t feasible. More to the point, Yancy’s schedule typically—unless Raleigh has a shoot—ends up being much more demanding, and he doesn’t feel right forcing the kid to hang out on campus for, potentially, hours longer than is strictly necessary.

“Mm...” Raleigh has to consider it for a moment, easing himself into the bathroom for his own shower. “Yeah, I could do that. I need to go to the library anyway.”

In all honesty today isn’t very busy for him but sitting down and getting as ahead as possible is a good idea and he always studies better on campus. Raleigh likes to pretend it’s easier for him to focus at home but it just isn’t true. He needs to be out of his element, either in the library or parked in a cafe or something in order to really focus. Home has too many distractions.

“Oh—hey. The Marshall—” Raleigh’s agent “—emailed to say he thinks I’ll have some castings this week so it’s probably best to play it by ear. New York fashion week is in a couple of months  and he thinks I might have a shot at runway for Calvin Klein or Boss this year.”

He flashes a smile. “Apparently I look nice in a suit.” And it’s extra funny because Raleigh doesn’t even _own_ a suit. Not a proper one. “It could be big money.” And traveling. With any luck he’d go on to do Paris, London and Milan.

Stacker Pentecost, a retired model-come-agent is the Janice Dickinson of the male modeling world. Fondly referred to as The Marshall for his carefully curated image and tight but inspiring leadership, he is the living, breathing embodiment How To Do This Industry Right. Raleigh will never understand why he was signed, but he is grateful for it every damn day. Finding each other was really just a happy accident at a casting call but it couldn’t have worked out any better.

Stacker believes in education and actively wants Raleigh to study. He wants him to balance his life and he encourages and supports along the way with the idea that once Raleigh does get his degree he will do a few years full time and then go on to have whatever career it is he wanted in the first place. “A little like joining the military”, Raleigh had joked when he explained the contract to Yancy some years ago.

Models don’t tend to have very long careers unless they breach into acting or superstar status and so the investment is worth it if it means Pentecost gets Raleigh’s remaining good years. Raleigh knows he has a career he can then fall back on when no one wants to book him anymore and everyone wins. Basically, Stacker is a god send. Raleigh has never been more popular and because he has a reduced availability he is seen as premium. Rare. A luxury. And lord knows he isn’t going to argue about that. He wants to be wanted.

“Yeah, sure kiddo, that works.”

Yancy pulls underwear on under his towel, then drops it and pulls out his phone again to check the weather. Looks like the cold spell they’d been having is coming to an end, though the morning is still going to be in the fifties, so he grabs some shorts and pulls them on over the underwear, deciding to dig out one of his hoodies once he finds a shirt.

“I can drop you by there before I go to class if you’d like.”

And then the rest of what his brother had said kicks in, and Yancy propels himself out his door and down to the bathroom, leaning against the now-closed door and putting his face near where it meets the frame.

“Wait, really? That’s _awesome_!”

Not to mention that, holy fuck, now he has a mental image in his head of Raleigh in a three-piece suit and he can’t get it out and _shit_ that isn’t a distraction he needs right now. He has to clear his throat to make sure his voice doesn’t shake as he speaks through the door, hoping his brother can hear him.

“Well, uh, let me know what you have to do for that, okay? Keep me updated and all that. Just make sure you make it to all your classes. Speaking of,” he turns his body so that his back is against the door, his head turned towards it, “are you gonna be okay staying on-campus until about five? I should be off of work by then, but I, ah,” his right hand comes up to rub at the back of his neck sheepishly even though Raleigh can’t see, “I don’t remember if you have class that late. So, you sure you want a ride? My day’s pretty solid, so I don’t think I’ll have much of a break to bring you home otherwise.”

Raleigh snorts to himself, not at all surprised. “I’m in the library all day, man, I’ll figure it out.” He answers as he goes through his morning ritual.

He can’t help but grin a little, though. Pentecost’s heads up had been a major lift, not to mention something to focus on that isn’t home or school.

“I’m gonna call him later and try to put a rough itinerary together. I’ll let you know when I do, you know how it is.”

The answering snort that works its way from Yancy’s throat is fond. Yes, he knows how it is. Once he’d found out that Raleigh had been managing his own time for modelling—which then explained why he’d apparently been missing classes here and there—he’d helped him with putting together his schedule. Or, rather, he’d tried. Planning all the events and shoots and meetings around the kid’s class had been a nightmare—still is, really. Thankfully, though, Raleigh had learned about all that time management from Pentecost after they’d met, becoming much better at it than Yancy’d ever been. Now, the kid can manage well enough on his own that Yancy doesn’t even feel like he has to worry about it.

“Alright man, be ready in, uh,” he digs into his shorts and pulls out his phone, checking the time, “twenty five minutes. We’re out the door at eight thirty.”

He heads back to his room, packs up his laptop and notebooks, then searches around his closet for a shirt. His hoodies are more elusive, and, after several minutes of fruitless searching, he gets down on his hands and knees and sticks his head under the bed to try and find them. He has to get his phone from out of his shorts pocket again, flipping the LED light on to look around in the mess. While his room as a whole might seem relatively neat, the truth is that he’s just better at hiding his mess. One of these days, he tells himself, he’ll go through all the crap under here; he’s pretty sure the paper he just pulled out was written two years ago.

“C’mon, you stupid pieces of shit,” he mutters to himself, casting his gaze around and using his other hand to dig around, “where are you?”

Raleigh almost asks what his brother is looking for but stops himself, lingering, instead, in the doorway. Freshly showered and dressed, he _was_ going to ask if he wanted Raleigh to put poptarts in the toaster but the question dies in his throat, attention redirecting  to his brother’s position on the floor, body flush against the carpet, crammed under the bed with his ass in the air while he looks for something.

He thinks for a moment maybe he should say something to startle Yancy but thinks better of it to appreciate the view for a little while longer. Slowly, one hand creeps to gently smooth his palm over his thigh, as close to touching himself as he will ever dare. What if Yancy were to turn around? He’s literally peeping on him and rubbing himself he—no. _No_. The back of his neck burns with shame.

Raleigh swallows and blinks hard, forcing himself away from his perch in the door to quickly close the distance and deliver a soft kick to his brother’s butt. His own fault for leaving himself open.

Yancy jumps when he feels something collide with his ass, wordless vocalization leaving his lips as his entire body spasms. His head collides with one of the metal slats, making him cry out _again_ —this time in pain—as stars burst behind his eyelids.

“Ow, _fuck_ ,” he finally manages to grit out, clenching his teeth as he pulls himself back, rolling over and cradling the back of his skull to find his brother grinning down at him. It doesn’t escape his notice that he’s apparently laying right between the kid’s legs, and that, if Raleigh were to kneel down, they’d basically be crotch-to-crotch.

And, christ, he didn’t know it was possible for something so… _normal_ to make his dick twitch like that. He has to close his eyes for a moment, grimacing, as he tries to get his body back under control. When he opens them again, his brother is still there, still smirking, a challenging tilt to his eyebrows.

“Fuck you too, kid,” Yancy mutters, squeezing his eyes shut again as he tries to fight the smile Raleigh’s mischievous look is trying to give him and getting to his feet. He’ll just forgo the fucking hoodie.

When he stands, he comes up inches from his brother’s body, and has to quickly jerk himself away before he does something he’ll regret. He stumbles over to his bag, still rubbing at the spot where his head is throbbing lightly, and zips it shut once he checks to make sure he has everything. “You ready yet?”

“Yep.” No. Not really. But he could get ready in a few minutes. ““You brought this on yourself. I just wanted to know if you wanted a poptart, but..” He shrugs, chuckling lightly. Because when you see an opportunity, you are of course supposed to take it. Especially when it comes to playfully catching his brother in a compromised position. Really, he shouldn’t have done it, but, well, it seemed funny at the time. It’s still funny moments later.

In any case, he doesn’t much wait for a response before backing off back towards the hall.

“Gimmie a minute, yeah? Meet you at the door.” All he has to do is dump his computer and some poptarts in his backpack and wiggle his shoes on.

“Sure, kiddo,” Yancy throws over his shoulder, but, when he turns to look, Raleigh’s already gone. A pang goes through him, but, hey, what did he really expect after yesterday? He shrugs to himself because, okay, yeah, if their positions had been reversed, he would’ve done the exact same thing to Raleigh—as their in-house rule for pranking has and always will be “If you have a shot, you take it”—and, sure, he would’ve felt bad if Raleigh had hit his head the way he had, he’d feel kind of bad about it. But, even so…

It’s nice to know that the kid’s still willing to at least joke around with him after his emotional vent last night, even if said joke had gone a little wrong.

He carries his stuff to the kitchen, searching in the pantry until he finds the poptarts box, snagging two packages and ripping one open to put it in the toaster for a minute or so while the other gets stashed away in his bag. He can hear his brother still rustling around in his room, and he grabs a paper plate just as the two now-warm pastries—S’mores flavor, since that seems to be one of the few they both actually like—reappear. They singe his fingertips slightly, but he shrugs it off, going to stand by the door, peace offering in hand.

“Let’s go, Rals,” he yells into the apartment, grabbing his keys and jangling them. “Time’s a-wasting.”

“Yeah, I’m coming!” And Raleigh appears a moment later, reading something on his phone as he shoulders his pack. Whatever it is he is reading seems important and he lingers for a moment to cram as much of it as possible into his head before he gets to Yancy.

“Yep, okay.” Phone locked and back in his pocket and gives a grin and snags one of the poptarts, hissing a small “ah-hot hot hot!” at the heat and bouncing it between his hands as he makes for the car.

Yancy can’t help the laugh that bubbles up in his chest at his brother’s antics, feeling for a moment like everything is normal again.

“Careful, kid,” he admonishes gently as he carries the paper plate down the hall, locking the door behind him to follow Raleigh out to the parking lot. “They’re hot.”

He smirks and ignores the middle finger the kid sends his way, instead eating his own poptart once he’s situated in the car and it’s cooled enough. They sit in silence for the drive, Yancy more focused on the road than talking, soft music playing over the speakers where Raleigh’s hooked his iPod into the dashboard dock. It’s a familiar morning ritual for them. Yancy’s never been much of a morning person, and, though he knows Raleigh can and will talk a mile a minute if given the chance, the kid’s too damn nice and accommodating of the fact that Yancy’s barely functioning as it is to try and pull him into a conversation. It’s just one of the many reasons Yancy’s in love with him.

When they arrive on campus, Yancy parks the car in the student lot, then walks his brother to the library. He leaves him there with a quick hug and a “Have a good day, kiddo. I’ll see you at five,” before he heads off to his morning lab.

“You too, bro.” Raleigh answers

Raleigh’s new friend has answered his emails. Not only answered, but answered in depth and he hadn’t been able to finish the whole thing before. He would pour over it a few times once he got settled in the school’s library and knew Yancy was safely as far away as possible. It would take him a little while to draft an answer, sighing and dragging his hands through his hair, but he’d get there. It had barely been any time at all but ever since he’d sent that first message his life has been...weird. Or maybe he’s just been hyper aware of every single little action and reaction. Having someone to talk to at least made it bearable. Made it better. A sounding board. Which is why, upon reading the letter a fourth time, Raleigh takes a moment to process, cracks his knuckles and begins to type.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd except for a quick readthrough. Probably missed some stuff. Feel free to point out any errors you might find.

_[[ To: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

_From: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

**_re:I saw your post…_ **

_Sure, let’s be friends. I think we could both use one right now._

_Gay and incestuous with model/moviestar hot tier brothers and potential dog farm. We’re doing great, huh. What a joke._

_I think I know what you mean about false hope and I think maybe you’re right. Thinking that he’s ‘taken’ is probably the best way of looking at it otherwise I’m going to flip out. But this guy? Whoever it is he’s so in love with? Apparently doesn’t even know he exists or thinks about him that way and it makes me so mad! Of course he won’t tell me who because he’s depressed and doesn’t wanna talk about it but if and when I find out it is going to be a real struggle not to hunt him down and clobber him. My brother is older than I am and I’ve been looking up to him my entire life. He got the training wheels off his bike first, he learned to talk to girls first (kinda had to teach myself to talk to boys, probably why I’m so bad at it), I’ve always looked to him to take the lead on everything. He’s my anchor and it pisses me off that there is literally nothing I can do to help him when he has given everything he is to take care of me.. And I guess growing up and seeing him date people, notice people, I guess I kinda always hoped that one day, you know, he would notice me? Which actually sounds insane when you think about it but there you are. It probably doesn’t help that we, especially growing up, have always been physical. Our parents really encouraged us to be close and we’re kind of each other’s shadow. Which can be difficult because, you know, circumstances, but I couldn’t have it any other way._

_I also know what you mean about wanting to leave, sometimes. I don’t think I could ever do it (I’ve been walked out on before and it is literally the worst thing to experience on earth), I don’t WANT to, but sometimes I wonder if it’s the only way. Like, what if I never stop feeling like this? I can’t really pin point how long I even have felt this way, you know? It always just made sense and by the time I was old enough to figure out that I’d crossed a line it was too late and I’m not sure if it will ever go away. And I know I’m just making it harder for myself because realistically I know nothing will happen no matter how bad I want it to and then I just feel even worse. I’ve kinda had to start avoiding him now which is extra shitty and we can’t even do something simple like sit next to each other without getting uncomfortable and me feeling like a total asshole. We used to be so close. I’m terrified of losing him._

_The thing is_ — _and now I’m wondering if maybe you ARE me and this is all just some fucked up Fight Club style situation where you and I are actually the same person_ — _we’re orphans, too. So believe me, I get not wanting to talk about that but I have to wonder if maybe that’s affected us in the same way? We don’t have any grandparents or other family, and when it was suddenly just us...well. It was just us. Does that make sense? Do you think maybe that’s why I am the way I am..and maybe you? Like our brains were like ‘sure, why not! they’re already everything else to us, let’s just fall in love with them as well and go for the gold!’ Maybe you and I should just quit life and move to the middle of nowhere and raise pugs or something._

_Sounds like yesterday was rough for the both of us. Here’s hoping today is better. ]]_

 

There’s a ping from his laptop where it’s open on his desk, and Yancy forces himself to look up from his checklist for the day and see what new complaint his boss has. Instead, he finds a new mail notification blinking in the window that he has now reserved for his forum email. It stays at the back of the other windows he has open just in case anyone goes snooping, and he makes sure to keep it the only tab in case he needs to hastily close it. Not that he’s ashamed of his correspondence with this new friend of his, but, well...if anyone at work saw this, it wouldn’t be the most pleasant thing in the world, to say the least. He tucks the sheet of paper back into its folder, putting it aside for now as he brings the window to the forefront.

He has to suppress a chuckle as he reads on. What a joke indeed. He’s just about to start typing when Tendo leans into his office.

“Boss-man wants to talk to you, Becket Boy,” the postdoc says by way of greeting, offering him a sympathetic smile and raising of his eyebrows. “Oh, and, uh, heads up: he didn’t look exactly pleased when he issued his summons, if you get what I mean.”

“Fucking wonderful.” Yancy rubs at his face, thumb and forefinger pinching at the bridge of his nose to try to fight off the headache he can already feel beginning to form. He’d slipped in to get a head start on his work when his lab section had let out just under two hours early, and he’s only been here for twenty minutes. Not exactly a new record, but it is pushing it. It makes him wonder what would’ve happened if the good doctor had wanted to see him while he was still in lab; it wouldn’t be the first time he’d sent some poor Master’s or Ph.D. student to go fetch his precious technician from class. He heaves a sigh, looking up at his friend to ask, almost pleading, “Any idea what he wants?”

And, as his mind is clearly not on track today, he notes that Tendo’s normally-slicked back hair is askew and that he’s, for whatever reason, rocking a pink bowtie. It takes him by surprise, and has him adding, “And what’s the deal? Allison mad at you or something? Hide all your bowties from you again?”

He gets a shrug and an eye roll in answer.

“Nope. Just said it was vital that he speak to you right away. And, what, this?” Tendo gestures at his hair and tie, grinning. “Nope, just wanted to wear a specific one today. Be _patriotic_ and all that garbage.” Another eye roll. “Didn’t find it in time, so, this is how you get me today, Becket Boy. Oh, and speaking of patriotic,” he turns to walk away, probably going back to whatever work he’d been pulled away from, and calls back to Yancy over his shoulder, “come find me when you have a minute. We’ll talk about Friday.”

“Does Alison know you’re planning a party for the Fourth?” Yancy fires back, grinning despite the dread building in his stomach.

“It was her idea.” The words are muffled, and Yancy barely catches them. Which means Tendo’s back at his station. With that, he has no further excuse for distracting himself—at least not one he can swing as valid; “Oh, no, I was just talking, well, emailing, with my friend, the one I just made who also has incestuous feelings for his brother. About what? Oh, about life and, y’know, how we both have incestuous feelings for our brothers. Did I mention we both have incestuous feelings for our brothers and that it gives us this amazing bond?” likely won’t fly. So he gets his feet under him, wandering around the various rooms of the lab to try to find his boss, checking each of the most obvious places first—the hood room and the man’s office—before he makes a noise that others would probably describe as a grumble and starts meticulously checking every single damn space in the lab. Even the closets. Weirder things have happened.

Eventually, it’s the shouting that clues him in. Barely audible in their lab, but it gets louder when Yancy takes a step into the hallway.

“Of fucking course,” his voice is low enough that only he can hear it—at least, he hopes so—and he sets off towards the faculty offices on the other side of the building. The closer he gets, the louder the voices become.

His hunch, as it turns out, is proven to be correct when he rounds the corner and comes face to face with two men arguing with each other. Loudly. Neither seem to notice him.

“Dr. Geiszler, Dr. Gottlieb,” Yancy greets them both, lips tightening. Both men jump, although the one of the two of them with thick-rimmed glasses—Dr. “call me Newt” Geiszler, who is Yancy’s immediate boss—jumps significantly higher before two sets of practically-glowing eyes turn towards him.

“Oh, Yancy, good, I was just going to come find you.”

Yancy opens his mouth, about to ask what’s so important that he needs to do it _right now_ , but Dr. Gottlieb cuts him off.

“For god’s sake, Newton, at least have the decency to behave like a responsible adult and address _Mister Becket_ as one as well. This is an institution of _science_ , _not_ a fast food restaurant.”

Before Geiszler can say something scathing in reply, Yancy interrupts them both. Maybe that’s rude. Maybe he has better things to do than listen to them argue about which of their two projects is more important to the grant they’re both working under. The grant under which Yancy had been hired. So, technically speaking, both were his boss, but Gottlieb tended to leave him be.

“I’m sorry, but I was told you wanted to speak with me, Dr. Geiszler? Tendo came and found me.”

There’s a span of a few seconds during which Geiszler looks absolutely lost and confused, but then his eyes clear and he snaps his fingers before pointing at Yancy.

“Right! I need you to rerun the GAPDHs on the last six sets of cDNA. I’m pretty sure that Vic messed up the preps, but I just want to be _absolutely_ sure it’s that and not, y’know, that he messed up the RT.”

Yancy’s stomach plummets at the words. The man is essentially asking him to redo the last three months of someone’s project, possibly setting Vic back to square one on his current work. Well, not square _one_ , but definitely square two or three. However, he stiffens his shoulders, nods, and grits out, “Got it. Anything else?”

The smile his boss sends him is quick and almost child-like in its enthusiasm; for a moment, Yancy thinks he can almost see a spark of the person Geiszler used to be—someone still amazed at the wonders of scientific discovery—before years in an institution had hardened him.

“Nope, thanks Yancy. Make sure you’re really super-careful, though.”

“You know, maybe if you actually let your students work without breathing down their necks incessantly, they’d be less apt to make mistakes—”

By the time Yancy’s reached his office, he can already hear the two of them going at it again. He closes his door halfway to try to block out some of the sound to no avail, checks the time—still an hour or so before his class, and then he’ll be back here another hour and a half after that—and unlocks his computer to look over the email he’d gotten again. The folder that contains his daily list of responsibilities is staring at him from its place next to him on the desk.

What the hell. It’s not like they’re going anywhere. And he really, _really_ doesn’t want to be the one responsible for ruining Vic’s work.

Speaking of Vic, he catches sight of the kid—well, he’s practically Yancy’s age, but Yancy can’t help but think of all the master’s students in the lab as kids—walking past his door, and calls out to him.

“Hey, Tunari, mind getting the PCR kit out on ice for me? I’m gonna need it later today.”

“What, you mean you don’t want to sit and stare at it for several hours while all the tubes thaw?” comes back the sarcastic reply, though Vic pokes his head in to grin at Yancy, his eyes almost obscured by his shaggy, blond mane. Geiszler will probably get on him about that soon; clearly, having hair longer than a few inches is automatically a safety hazard. “But, yeah, sure. You want me to put it anywhere or just…”

“My bench is fine,” Yancy smiles back. “I’m gonna need it after class, so, better it stays out of the way.”

With a quick “Gotcha,” Vic goes back to...whatever it was he’d been doing before. Yancy doesn’t keep track of what everyone’s doing on a given day unless it might interfere with his own work. More accurately, he tells everyone else what he’s doing, and then lets them plan around it if they’re able.

He’s pretty sure some of them—the postdocs, at least, sans Tendo; Tendo actually likes him—gripe about him behind his back.

Whatever. He’s getting paid to be here. That’s good enough for him.

Yancy turns back to his laptop after shouting a “Thanks!” out his door. He gives himself a few seconds to collect his thoughts, then starts typing.

 

_[[ To: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

_From: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

**_re:I saw your post…_ **

_What a joke is right. God, sometimes I wonder how this became my life._

_Although I do have some good news (at least, I think it might be good news?): I can confirm that we are not, in fact, in a fight-club-type situation. How do I know this, I hear you ask? Well, your brother is older than you, but mine is younger than me. So, hey, yeah, how about that? Although, I promise he's not a whole lot younger than me. After all, we're both in college, like I said, and... Okay yeah, no, that actually somehow doesn't really make me feel any better about it. No matter how I try to justify it, it always comes back to the fact that I'm that creep who fell in love with his little brother before the kid even really hit puberty. I mean, you saw my post: I was sixteen. I think he was, god, twelve at the time? And I just sort of looked at him, all gangly limbs, the cutest fucking smile, and a heart that somehow hasn't gotten any smaller as he's grown up. And I suddenly knew. Instead of looking at other guys, I'd always be looking at him. Always waiting for him. Because no fucking way could I ever force this on him. Even then I knew how fucked up I was, I think, because I locked myself in my room and just... I'm not religious by any means, never really have been. I think it's important to understand that about me. I believe in the tangible, in things I can see and hold and touch and observe._

_I'm sorry if that offends you or, y'know, it conflicts with what you believe. We don't need to get into a deep religious/philosophical discussion. I'm just saying this to give you some perspective for what I'm about to tell you._

_I prayed that night. For the first and last time. I asked anything out there that might exist to make me not feel this way, to not be_ that guy _._

 _And yet, here I am. Still the guy who wants his little brother's dick. And, sure, he's definitely not little anymore. I mean, jesus, the kid's grown up and fucking_ gorgeous _now—I like to think that the beauty I saw in him even as a kid is just external now, too, because he hasn't lost it internally, that's for sure—and so it's better now. Sort of. But I'll never get out of that label._

_Okay, wow, sorry, I guess I just...waxed melancholy or something there._

_Anyway. Take comfort in the fact that you're not the most fucked up one In this conversation. But I digress._

_Still, that does suck about your brother and him being. Well. Taken. Emotionally anyway. If you need someone to come help beat someone up, go ahead and give me a ring._

_I feel almost like I should talk about something less...depressing now. Then again, when it comes to loving your brother...god, I guess there isn't much of anything that's not depressing. Still, thanks for listening. If nothing else, it's nice to get this all out there. To actually say it. I...I think it helps, to be honest. Things between me and my brother have been getting weird lately—well, really,_ I've _been getting weird—and it's nice to have someone who will listen without judging me. Someone who understands. I guess knowing that you're on the other end, going through a lot of the same stuff, helps all by itself. So, thanks. For having the balls to message me in the first place._

_Till later. ]]_

 

The reply comes swiftly enough and Raleigh looks up from the mountain of books he’s somehow managed to surround himself with. Half of them he doesn’t even need but he thinks might somehow prove useful eventually if he tries hard enough. In the meantime he’s used them to construct a sort of Leave Me Alone book fort and it seems to be working out alright. He’s in the middle of a deep, intense dissection and analysis of Remarque’s All Quiet On The Western Front and whilst he enjoys the book, it is utterly soul destroying, so the email is a welcome distraction.

He reads it twice, just to make sure he doesn’t miss anything (as he has been known to do when reading too quickly) and plucks out a few lines before navigating away and scooting back in his chair.

“Hey,” He says to the girl across from his table, looking as equally engrossed in her work. “I’m just gonna run to the vending machine, will you watch my stuff?”

She looks up and then does a double take. “Uh. Y-eah. Sure. No worries. Raleigh raises an eyebrow and then nods, giving a small “Thanks”. The girl takes a moment for herself and quickly types something into google. “Burberry cologne with blonde guy”. Aha, bingo. she knew it.

Raleigh comes back a moment later with a bottle of water and a twix and smiles at her. There is a moment of silence before she pipes up.

“So- sorry, hey you’re that model right?”

He raises an eyebrow, something sinking slightly in his stomach.

“That model?”

“Yeah-” she says and turns her computer around. Sure enough, it’s one of his old campaigns. His first big one, actually. His first with Stacker.

“Yeah,” he can feel himself flushing. “That’s me. That’s old stuff though, I was young-” and skinny.

“-Well you look great!” She answers, jumping in and turning her computer back around. “What are you doing here if you model?”

“It’s only part time. To pay for school.” A simple answer for a simple question.

“But this is like a huge brand, why aren’t you doing it all the time? God,” she sighs. “It must be so awesome.”

“It has it’s perks, yeah. Pros and cons.” The money and the attention is pretty great, not to mention the swag. He enjoys the parties and meeting and chatting with new people, sometimes even famous people, but there are some serious bad sides. The egos, the warped body images, the pretension and insane levels of stress not to mention the last minute schedule changes, everyone having an opinion about what you look like. A shoot can be anywhere up to fourteen hours and filming can take days. Not that he’s complaining, because he does gets paid these days unlike when he was just starting out, but being on high alert focus for that long is exhausting. Sometimes he wonders why he didn’t get a normal job like his brother. If _Yancy_ of all people could work in a lab he’s pretty sure he can too. But would he want to? Proooobably not. then again, he isn’t so sure his brother really wants to, either. At least under his boss. Bosses. The Old Married Couple. And even if Raleigh didn’t get a job with Yancy there are plenty of other options. He could have done something retail or waited tables like most kids his age, but, no. For whatever reason? Modeling had happened and it was going pretty alright, so why cut it off. Especially considering he’s a nobody from nowhere, scouted on the street outside a casting at Boon in DC.

“Do you like it?” Her peppering of questions was hammering through his book fort as though it wasn’t even there. his own fault, really.

“Yeah, it’s good. I like meeting people and I get to travel.” _That’s right_ , he thinks, _just tell her what she wants to hear._ “Hey, sorry. I just really have to focus, is that okay? We can talk more later if you want..”

“Oh! Sure, sorry. Sorry sorry.”

They share another smile, awkward and perhaps slightly starstruck on her side, and he sinks back down into his study nest, putting his earphones in for good measure. He smiles, a little swell of pride in his chest at being well known enough to be recognized, but once he puts that together in his head the feeling turns icy and dies. If his intentions ever got out.. If someone ever knew… his life would be over. All Quiet can wait. This has been a reminder to email Stacker back but it’s also a good chance to respond to his friend.

 

_[[ To: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

_From: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

**_re:I saw your post…_ **

_Alright then, less fight club more bizarro world._

_Firstly, no man, I’m not offended.. I like to think I used to have faith in, I don’t know, something..but that kinda died with my parents. Isn’t that the most emo thing you’ve ever read? I’m pretty sure it’s a winner for most depressing shit I’ve ever written. But you know how it is (and you really do, this is weird for me, no one ever knows how it is, they just know pity) when you’re alone, the only thing you CAN believe in is yourself and your brother. We were just old enough we didn’t have to go into the system, or rather he was, and gave up everything to keep us floating until I graduated high school. He’s actually my hero._

_Thinking about it, I might still have faith deep down somewhere. Maybe not in a higher power, but definitely in something. If nothing more than the idea that I’m going to eventually be okay. I just have to keep telling myself that. “It’s going to be okay. I am who I am and it’s going to work out.” Eventually. Hopefully. I don't think I can be in a world where it won't...whatever that means._

_And if and when I find out who that guy is don’t be surprised if I do call you. A little back up never hurts when beating someone into submission screaming “why don’t you love him like I do?!” Because doing it solo makes you a psychopath. Having an accomplice makes you an anti-hero. Or an angry, aggressive gay with backup. Can that be a thing? Like a troop of angry aggressive incest soldiers?_

_I. Wow. Sorry. I think my class load has finally broken my brain into making crappy jokes to soften how bad this all is. Not that I even have that many classes, but my head is so full right now I just want to give up and scoop out my brains and throw them at the wall. I need to get out. I need to get laid. I need a hobby that isn’t obsessing over my own depravity._

_I hate the word incest. I hate reading it. I hate saying it. It makes all this real. Like it gives a name to the darkness I’m scared will devour me one day. Maybe, I don’t know. Maybe saying it will help though. Not out loud, but to you. Maybe if I say it enough, say it casually enough it won’t haunt me. Now there’s a concept: feeling haunted._

_For the record, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with praying, whether you believe in religion or not. Praying is a way of vocalizing what you need, and putting your intentions in order. It’s about realizing and acknowledging your weaknesses and looking for a way to make it right. Only, the person to do that is you, not some mighty being in the sky or a giant turtle or something. My boss is really zen about that kind of thing and talks about energy and intentions manifesting. Like, if you say something enough it eventually becomes true? But you have to let it all flow through you..If you cling too tightly you'll get stuck. I guess i'm pretty stuck but, its all easier said than done. Though, to be honest, I’m not so sure that concept applies to this particular problem._

_Case in point, I’m not famous but I’m kinda well known? Newly popular, I guess. And someone just recognized me point blank which is cool but terrifying because say for a second that by the grace of god I told him and he didn’t hate me, or even felt the same way?? What if all this were to come out? What would happen then?_

_Sorry, I think I’m just jibbering at this point._

_As for who is the bigger perv, I’m not sure this is a contest I wanna get into but I bet you didn’t start your day watching your brother bent over looking for something and stand in his door like literally an inch away from touching yourself it while he wasn’t looking. Because I sure feel a whole new level of fucking low for that one. ]]_

 

Yancy hates his microbial genetics class.

To be fair, the class itself isn’t that bad. The material isn’t the worst thing he’s gone up against by any means—thank you, organic chemistry—and Gottlieb is much more tolerable when Yancy’s boss isn’t there to pester him. Plus, the man’s work is population modeling in microorganisms, so it’s obvious, just from the way he teaches, that he knows the material. It’s a quality that has always helped Yancy when learning something: if the professor is excited about it, he finds that he can, himself, much more easily work himself up to learning it.

Plus, working in Gottlieb’s lab—well, _technically_ working in it—for about two years now means that he’s been exposed to a sizeable chunk of the information already. Which, of course, is exactly why he hates it. He has to take at least sixteen hours of 400-level courses, and this class counts for four. Truthfully, it’s not so bad—and, okay, maybe hate is a strong word for how he feels about it—it just feels like a complete waste of time when they review information he already knows.

And, of course, it’s a summer class. So there’s that.

When he finally makes it back to the lab, it takes him all of thirty minutes to set up the experiments Geiszler wanted him to run. Except, of course, he knows the doctor will probably want the gels on them done and analyzed today, never mind that Yancy can easily leave them for any time in the next two weeks—for a day when he doesn’t have a checklist of twenty other things that need doing. So there goes another hour of his time later.

Once the thermal cycler is running, Yancy stops by his office, and a weight seems to lift itself from his chest when he notices that his new friend—lotterysnacks; he can’t say he understands, but, then again, it was probably an inside joke for them—has emailed him back. He gets to the point of actually sitting in his chair, hitting the reply button, his fingers hovering over the keys, before the red folder containing his daily checklists catches his eye. He looks over at it, looks back at his email, and then back to the folder.

He wants to answer the email. Wants to so badly that his fingers are practically itching.

God damn it.

With a sigh, he grabs the folder and pulls out his current list, setting to work. It takes him almost half an hour to mix up the eighteen different stock solutions they’re apparently running out of—itself just one item on the list—and he sets four of them to mixing while he moves on to the lab’s cell cultures and feeding them all. At least, he tries to start his work on the cultures, only to find that, apparently, one of the postdocs—he knows exactly which one, because no one else is using their own, isolated incubator—has decided to pilfer his stash of maintenance media. However, Yancy prides himself on his self-control—after living alone with Raleigh for almost six years, his self control is fucking _fantastic_ , or so he’d like to think—so, instead of storming off to the asshole’s bench, he makes a note on his checklist in jerky, agitated letters: _Talk to Taylor_.

After a moment’s consideration, he adds, _Again_ , then circles the words for good measure.

After all, this is the third time this has happened.

That done, he gathers the materials he’ll need to mix up the media he’s going to need for the day and sets them out to thaw beside the fridge. Just to be sure no one messes with his things, he tapes a note to the ice bucket: _Y.B. Find me before you use anything in here_. He looks at the note, smirks, then adds, _Or I will find you_. A crudely-drawn skull and crossbones take up the remaining space below the words.

The skin of his face feels too tight, so he rubs at it. It doesn’t help much, nor does it drive away the weight gathering in the pit of his gut. Sighing between his fingers and shaking his head to himself, he checks off _LN2_ from his list, and then wheels their dewar to the liquid nitrogen tank down the hall, bringing his phone with him. It usually takes about five to ten minutes of constant flow to top off the eighty gallon container—honestly, Yancy still hasn’t figured out why their lab doesn’t order their own tank and be done with it—and he intends to get as much out of it as he can. Once he’s got the freezing liquid flowing and he’s made sure there aren’t any leaks in the hose, he sets to work replying to his friend’s message. Well, as much of it as he can. Christ, he hates typing on his phone sometimes.

 

_[[ To: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

_From: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

**_re:I saw your post…_ **

_No, I get it. I think if I’d had any kind of faith left when my brother and I were left on our_  
own, it probably would’ve vanished in that moment. However, I’d glad that you  
at least still have faith in yourself. Don’t lose it. If anything, know that  
one more person out there believes the same thing about you: you’re going to be  
okay. Maybe it’s the big brother in me talking, but I’ll make sure of it, even  
if I have to drive to wherever and beat some asshole’s face in. Actually, after  
my day today so far—and by the time my day is done, I’m sure—it would probably  
be pretty cathartic.

_The way you talk about your brother… I think if I’d have had someone there for me like that, well...I suppose I’ll just say I can understand why you fell for him. Given that I was the oldest brother, well, that was basically what I had to do. It was never even a question in my mind. I was old enough to take care of him. I didn’t need a college education to do it, even, I knew that. I just had to keep us alive. Keep my brother in school. Give him the future that I no longer had._

_But, y’know, it figures that my brother is an obstinate little shit—and I say that with all the love in my heart, I do. When he went to college, he basically forced me to apply, too. Well, not forced so much as...asked. And when he asks me for something, well...I’m sure you understand. Either way, that’s how we’re both in school now. We’re both technically in the same year, which gets us—well, me—a few odd looks every now and then, but I usually just shrug it off. Because the day that my brother got his full ride? Probably one of the proudest days of my life. And it made it all completely worth it. It was sort of reaffirming, actually, that I’d made the right choice._

_So I generally tell anyone who gives me a hard time to go fuck themselves. Or I ignore them. Usually ignore them. It’s just easier that way._

_Although his scholarship doesn’t cover summer classes, so we still have to pay for those, and I only got a partial. So. Y’know. Still have to work. And my brother...he works, too. He claims it’s to pay for his summer tuition and his part of the rent and nothing else, but I’ve caught him siphoning money into my account twice now. Even though I’ve told him to stop, I’m almost sure he still does it. He cares so much about others despite the shit we’ve gone through that it boggles my mind sometimes. Kind of like your brother, I suppose._

God _, I love him so much. I wish so much that it weren’t wrong. But hey, at least, if we have to be in the darkness, we have company now, right? And maybe...I don’t know. I don’t really have hope for myself ever finding anyone to replace him, but I do hold out hope that my brother will find someone some day. He dates a lot. Or, at least, before he had a really bad breakup last semester, he used to date a lot. Every time, though, he always ends up coming to me and just drunkenly passing out in my lap, crying, and it’s_ so hard _. I feel fucking awful for saying it, because in those moments it’s not about me, it’s about him, but it’s just...I want so badly to kiss him and make it all go away, except I know that if I do that it will make it so, so much worse._

_And, christ, I don’t think I could handle being famous at all. Too much pressure. I don’t know how you manage it. However, if...okay, this is purely hypothetical here, but if it were me? And I somehow worked up the balls to tell him, and other people found out? Honestly, I’d probably just tell people that it’s none of their business. It’s your life, not theirs. ]]_

 

Yancy looks up at the tank, then checks the clock on his phone. It’s been about ten minutes, and the dewar still isn’t full. Not for the first time, he wishes that there were a way to tell how much liquid is in the damn thing. Normally, he just has to refill it once a week, and, by his estimates, the tank is usually about a third full at that point. Someone must’ve used extra this week—he’s giving himself three guesses as to who it might be, and the first two don’t count. With a huff, he puts one of his gloves back on and opens the valve even further before he goes back to typing.

 

_[[ I mean, if people started pushing? I...I don’t know. That’s tough. Ultimately, though, it’s your decision, obviously, but I think I’d just tell everyone who questions it to go fuck themselves. Mostly, though, I think I’d just be careful not to let anyone know that he’s my brother. Or, failing that, not let anyone know we were together. And if they got evidence? Like, a kiss, or something? I…yeah, I don’t know. I mean, the world is more accepting today, than it was a few years ago, but...I don’t know, I guess I’d mostly wait and see how people at large react to it before I decided what to do. Though, I suppose it’s not like I’ll ever have to worry about it. Because, again, like I’ve said, with my brother: never going to happen. I wish I could offer you better or more advice. Sorry._

_And, hey. I mean, if my brother was bent over, ass in the air, you can bet that I’d probably have to lock myself in my own room for the next twenty minutes, if you know what I mean. So, it might be a new low, but, hey: just like with the incest thing? Right there beside you, man. If we’re going to hell—if one believes in such things—then I’ll be right there with you. Maybe we can start our army there. Hand out pamphlets or something. We’ll need some kind of incentives, though. Doughnuts, maybe? The Dark Side took cookies, so we can’t use that. ]]_

 

The cadence of the tank’s hissing changes, and Yancy glances up to see that the lab’s dewar is finally full and overflowing.

“About fucking time,” he mutters, stashing his phone and grabbing his gloves, turning off the flow from the tank and capping the dewar. However, before he wheels it back, he takes his phone out again, quickly finishing up his reply.

 

_[[ So, I should probably get back to work, but before I go, random normal-people question: any plans for the fourth? My brother and I might end up going to a party, but who knows? We also might end up sitting at home, drinking beer, and then setting a few fireworks off in the road. ]]_

 

He clicks send, waits for his phone to ding to indicate that the message has been sent successfully, and then starts wheeling the dewar back to the lab. Along the way, he sends off a quick text to Raleigh, letting the kid know that, the way things are going, he’s probably going to be in the lab until about six instead of five, and that he should probably think about some food options. After a few stomach gurgles and a quick internal battle, he also asks if the kid wants to get a late lunch together in maybe an hour or two if he’s free.

The answer is an enthusiastic yes.

_Sure, hit me up, man. A guy can only eat so many twix before real food becomes a must._

Followed by:

_Aka I’ve eaten all the twix in the machine. I’m ready to pack up whenever, should I pick something up and come to you?_

His phone pings with a new email just after he sends the text and there is a strange sort of charge going from talking to Yancy to talking about Yancy with his friend. His friend who has written a virtual essay but he devours every word just the same. Whoever this guy is speaks directly to him, no bullshitting around. Raleigh likes that. He likes the idea that at least one thing in his life can be direct and uncomplicated.

 

_[[ To: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

_From: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

**_re:I saw your post…_ **

_Doughnuts could work but they’d have to be krispy kreme. No krispy no interested. The only way I can see that failing is if we recruit a mess of aggressive incenstuous body conscious gays in Hell. And that...wow that sounds awful._

_I can’t imagine what it might be like to have been the older sibling in our situation. Your strength to pick up and carry on is admirable. I don’t know how my brother, or you for that matter, did it but as the younger brother? Just let me thank you from the bottom of my heart that you did._

_And as someone who has also been known to try to shove money on his brother let me explain you a thing regarding that. You? The older sibling? Gave up everything for us. You gave up going to school, a normal life, everything in order to make sure your brother was alright. You strike me as a little similar to my brother in your fierce drive to provide but the reason he’s siphoning money back to you is because that is literally the only way he can feel like he’s contributing. For years I tried to quit school and get a job but he never let me, and now that I have an actual, well paid job, it’s all I can do._

_Believe me, if I could lay him down and worship him like he deserves I would. I think we’ve established that._

_I don’t know, a little insight, maybe. I could be wrong._

_I wish I could somehow magically provide you with a big brother. But maybe...try to share the load with the one you’ve got? Difficult as that may be. My brother is kind of a control freak and I can’t blame him (It doesn’t help I’m kind of awful at stuff like time management), and I am really grateful that he did and does so much for me, but I wish he would let me shoulder some of the burden. He carries the world around on his back like he’s Atlas and he doesn’t have to. He’s tired, I can see he is so tired but he won’t quit. It makes me want to sit him down and send him on vacation for a month. Somewhere warm where your drinks come with little umbrellas. Here’s an idea: proposed threesome? Or is that just way too freaking dangerous? ]]_

Raleigh had spent a fair amount of time thinking about this particular fantasy. Finding someone nice and getting them in the middle. Loving and cherishing them but maneuvering it into such a position that they take the person together. Heavy, swollen and throbbing, cocks rubbing together in perfect sync. They would have to face and Raleigh would practically sit in Yancy’s lap, their third party held between them, stretched tight. They’d be a sweaty, panting, wild mess. All tongues and teeth and lips and grasping hands. Heaving together. Rocking and crying out. Filling the person _together_. It would be amazing. It would be as close as he could possibly get and even then it was a stretch..but. That was why it was just a fantasy, right?

_[[ Might be too dangerous. Might lean in and kiss him. Because having sex together is okay but kissing is totally wrong._

_And man I feel you...I mean, I get why it’s wrong, I do, but it wasn’t always wrong. Like, back in the day it was totally common. The big problem is with genepools getting too small but it’s not exactly like we’re going to be having any kids.._

_See, there’s that hope again. Playing dirty._

_Maybe we should start looking for a place for our dog farm._

_And you know? With you being older and in the same year in school, it’s actually pretty common. Besides, you can totally booze when most of the other kids can’t. It’s gotta make you pretty damn popular. So you get a few looks, so what. Fuck them. You’re getting an education and that’s important. Hold on to that. I bet your brother is proud of you for doing it. I bet he feels like maybe you haven’t wasted or sacrificed your entire future on him. Again, I could be projecting, but there you are._

_Must be Hell to watch him date, though. I’m lucky my brother doesn’t really..except this new development of course. It’s not dating, but he’s upset about a relationship so I guess it’s similar? I try to distract myself but it never really ends up working out. No shit, Sherlock, I know. But I guess I kinda hoped I could at least distract myself with someone nice? Apparently I haven’t learned my lesson though because I keep doing it and it keeps crashing and burning. Glutton for punishment, I guess._

_Re: 4th, I’m not sure yet. We haven’t really talked about it but we did get some fireworks the other day and oh my god you would not believe the beast we brought home. She’s beautiful and I fully intend on blowing half the street up with her glory. I almost feel a little bad about it because she is so beautiful but my mom used to say what was the point of having nice china if we never used it? So I’m gonna light this girl on fire and it’s going to be magical. I’ll tape it or something so I don’t forget just how amazing the experience was. _

_Also...thank you. For believing in me. Sometimes I’m not so sure of myself and even if I say I’ve got faith..you know. It’s nice to hear it from someone else. For what it’s worth? I believe in you too. I’m rooting for you, man. You’re gonna be just fine. And besides, you’re not alone. You’ve got me to share the load with ]]_

 

In his pocket, Yancy’s phone dings once, twice, and then three times, the first two being text messages, the third an email. He would make a derisive comment about how shitty the service is in these separate labs, but at the moment he’s got more pressing matters to worry about. Like this fucking asshole Taylor’s inability to abide by basic protocol.

“Look, it’s not hard,” he tries his best to keep the condescension out of his voice, but he can tell the way the skin around the postdoc’s grey eyes tightens that he’s not entirely successful. “You fill out the form when you take liquid nitrogen so that we can keep track of how much I need to get from the department tanks. Because each time we have to order new tanks, it costs us money. You know, that thing that we have to be careful with? So, if our usage has increased, we need to know about it. Which _means_ ,” Taylor’s mouth had opened as if to interrupt him, but Yancy’s not fucking done, “that if you decide that you’re going to start freezing down and maintaining your own cultures, you need to tell me and Geiszler. Since, y’know, he’s the one paying for everything, and I’m the one who has to keep track of all this shit.”

“And I’m telling you, _Becket_ ,” there’s a decidedly snide tone to the way he says Yancy’s last name, like it’s something dirty or lesser, “that I checked with Newt, and that he said to take however much N-two I needed for my cryovial setup. So I don’t see what you’re getting upset about.”

“Okay, look Landon,” Yancy takes some small amount of joy in the way Taylor’s jaw clenches when he says his first name, “I know that you’ve been here for five years already. I know that you have seniority over me. I _know_ that you’re anxious to publish and—”

His phone dings in his pocket again, and Yancy has to resist to urge to sigh in frustration.

“—and I’m aware that, with our luck, that was probably Geiszler reminding us, again, that we need more publishable data. And I know you need that to get out of here and get your own lab. _However_ ,” he tries his best to put as much authority as he can into the word—after all, Taylor might be roughly ten years ahead of Yancy in terms of schooling, but he’s only five years older in years, “I was _hired_ to keep this lab running smoothly. Therefore, there is a _system_ that we use; a system that, to be completely honest, was, for the most part, in place before I even got here. I just made a few improvements, all of them approved by Geiszler. _So_ , when you take liquid nitrogen, you need to fill out the log so that we can keep track of our usage. _Also_ ,” and, now, Yancy’s eyes thin, and he feels the muscles of his jaw tighten, “you need to not take my fucking culture media.”

“Jesus, Becket, it’s not like it takes you that long to make more—”

“Landon,” Yancy cuts him off with his first name—there’s that jaw clench again—and a raised hand, waiting a beat to make sure the idiot’s not going to try to keep speaking. “Steal my shit again and I will report you to Geiszler. I _know_ it all comes from the same source, the same money, whatever, but I do _not_ have the fucking time to make media every time you need it. Especially when I’m not expecting it to be gone and have to thaw everything fresh. It’s a pain in my ass and a waste of my time and I’m not going to fucking stand for it. If you have a problem with that, I suggest you get over it.”

He doesn’t wait for Taylor to say anything, just turns and heads back to the main lab, heat creeping up his neck the entire way, his steps regular, even, almost as if they were measured. He siphons the four solutions that are now done mixing into their bottles—numbers nine through twelve, only six more to go—and puts four more on. His fingers itch to put a tick mark in the checkbox next to “Stocks,” but, alas, that would taste a lie, and Yancy is nothing if not honest.

Well, he admits to himself as his brother’s face flits across his mind’s eye, mostly honest.

The next batch of solutions now spinning away, he spends the next thirty minutes mixing up his media and feeding the lab’s cell cultures. Thankfully, none of them need to be passaged today, so he gets a pass on that, and can mark off three checkboxes—”Feed Cells,” “Replace Used Media,” and “Passage”—all at once. And, though it sends a spike of frustration to see that only two of the solutions he left out have finished dissolving their solid components, he can at least move those to their bottles, prep those bottles to be sterilized, and put the last two solutions on. A glance at his phone tells him that it’s just past two, and that he’d been right: his most recent email is from Geiszler, subject line: “need more data”. The other email, though, is from his new friend—he’s started to think of the other man, whoever he is, as “lottery” in his head—and the two text messages are from Raleigh. First things first, he checks the texts, letting out a soft chuckle and a “Damn it, kiddo,” before typing out his response.

_Please tell me you got some actual work done, squirt._

He stares at the words for a moment, not quite sure where the unfamiliar nickname had come from. Normally it’s either _kid_ , _kiddo_ , or _Rals_. But... _squirt_? Whatever. It’s ironic, clearly. At least, that’s what he tells himself as he continues typing.

_Also tell me you remembered to email the Marshal in between all your candy breaks. Regardless, if you swing by the lab in about 30 I’ll probably be ready. Check my office. If I’m not there, check with Tendo, Yuna, or Adam. Vic (blond, kinda floppy hair, your type? dunno if he swings that way tho) is the new master’s student I told you about last semester. Be nice to him if you do see him. Please._

He’s sent the message before Yancy even thinks that he should add a note that, well, _he_ thinks is obvious. But, especially considering what happened last time his brother came into the lab, Raleigh might need a reminder.

 _And for the sake of my sanity,_ please _avoid Taylor, Lightcap, and Max this time. I don’t think my eardrums ever fully healed after the last time. I swear, I don’t know why you two hate each other so much. Max is normally really nice. Seriously, you two need to fuck and be done with it._

It almost physically hurts his chest to send the suggestions to Raleigh. Even worse, the feeling is two-fold. The smaller part is a smidgen of guilt for essentially pimping out his friends to his brother in the hopes that the kid might find something worthwhile with one of them. Because, maybe, then, like with Lottery’s brother, if Raleigh were emotionally unavailable, he might be better-able to handle this daily stream of cold, pain, and _desire_ that bombards him like freezing water out of an over-pressurized hose.

The larger part is, of course, panic. Panic that Raleigh will find something worthwhile with one of them, and that he’ll leave Yancy behind. Because, truthfully? Yancy’s pretty sure that would destroy him. It’s wrong and fucked-up and codependent and he knows it, but...as much as he tells Raleigh they both need each other, he _knows_ that he needs Raleigh more than Raleigh needs him. And, no, it’s not fair of him to do that to his brother—to essentially hold him hostage to Yancy’s own fucked-up emotions—but he doesn’t know what else he can do.

A bullet in his brain would probably be less painful than losing his brother.

Not that he would ever do that, because that would, even if they weren’t living together anymore, absolutely _kill_ his brother, and he knows that. And...shit. That’s actually not really cool at all.

Yeah, he really needs to talk to Lottery.

Which is probably why Yancy finds himself in his office, his email open, a blank reply to the message he’d just skimmed open, with almost no solid memory of how he’d gotten there before he’d started reading.

 

_[[ To: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

_From: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

**_re:I saw your post…_ **

_Okay, this is going to sound completely random, and I promise that I_ did _read the message you sent me and I’ll probably respond to it later. Maybe. If I remember. (sorry) But...I just had a thought._

_All our lives, my brother and I have said that all we need is each other. I know that I would probably die if he left me for someone else. I wish that were a metaphor or simile or whatever—my brother could tell you, probably—instead of just me being...absolutely honest. I do not think that I could go on living, not any kind of real life, if my brother left me._

_But, when I thought of that, I realized that I’d never, not in a million years, actually do something like that. Killing myself, that is. Because I’m pretty sure that losing me like that, after we lost our parents, would kill_ him _. And I don’t know how to feel about that. Because, on one hand, sure, it’s fucked up and probably really unhealthy for us to be that dependent on each other, but at the same time it’s also nice to be wanted like that, even if it’s not the way I, well, want. But then, there’s a third hand to consider, because this apparently mutant hour: did I do that to him? I mean, sure, I only raised him really for a few years, not counting the fact that we kind of helped raise each other a lot as kids because our dad was out of town on business all the time and our mom tried but, you know, she couldn’t always be there. So...did I make him need me? Is it my fault? Is it, I don’t know, some seed of this fucked-up whatever that’s inside of me jumping over to him? And if it is, what the_ fuck _do I do about it?_

_I think...I think that dog farm idea might actually have more merit now. If only because, holy shit, I think I need to be taken away from my brother as soon as humanly possible. I keep offering him options from my friends and from work, but he doesn’t seem to ever take any of them and jesus I can’t get away from him unless I know he’ll be alright. Fuck. I...I don’t know what to do now._

_I...fuck._

_What the fuck do I do?_

_What the fuck_ can _I do? ]]_

 

The thundered reply comes almost immediately. Raleigh had been half way though answering his brother when the email came through and he immediately abandoned the text in favor of answering his friend first.

 

_[[ To: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

_From: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

**_re:I saw your post…_ **

_Breathe! Just breathe. That’s all you can do. And stop trying to hook him up with your friends, you’re only hurting yourself, man. I get you wanting to know he’s with someone you trust, but seriously stop that._

_I’d be a fucking hypocrite if I told you I haven’t considered.. you know. It feels impossible, I get it. I've been there. But don’t do it. Its not the answer. Its never the answer._

_Don’t you fucking dare leave him. Don’t you dare leave me._

_And who the fuck decides what’s healthy and what isn’t, right? So you’re close. So you’re codependent. who cares. Living the life we have? Growing up the way we have? How else are we supposed to be?_

_I can’t speak for your brother but for me, I know without a doubt that he didn’t do anything to me. He didn’t put this in me. He loved me and took care of me. He’s my anchor, my fixed point, my everything. It’s not his fault I fell in love with him and you did NOT do anything to your brother. Remember, he is his own person who makes his own decisions. Don’t you think for a second you’ve infected him or whatever. It doesn’t work that way and you know it. He needs you but not because you made him._

_You are a good man. You are a GOOD BROTHER. You’re going to be okay. You’re gonna get through this. **Do not leave him!** Just breathe. Count to ten and breathe and say it out loud. “I am going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.” _

_Please don’t do anything stupid. ]]_

 

And what more was there to say? He would have called if he had the number, just to make sure everything was alright. Just to hear a human voice. A fierce panic rises in his chest and knots in his stomach. The kind of out of control fear for a friend whom you can’t physically support.

The email...talking about suicide…it’s dark. It’s fucking dark and he isn’t going to let his friend go down that path. Even if maybe he is being dramatic it isn't worth not saying. He isn't prepared to take that chance.

Raleigh gets it, he knows the overwhelming darkness because he’s felt it. He’s sat in his room wound tight, thinking about how easy it would be to just give in because he is not okay and he would never be okay and he loves Yancy so much it hurts and not being with him _hurts_. There hadn’t been anyone for him to talk to about it, either. He didn’t have a friend who knew. He didn’t have someone who understands. It had been scary. It had been surreal, like he wasn’t in his own body. He was unaccountable for his fears and actions as they strung him up like a marionette and played him across a sheet of ice. But he had soldiered through. He’d picked himself up and curled up next to Yancy and said he was just sad because of a boy.. young love. Stupid young love.. and Yancy had held him and told him it was going to be alright...and it helped. His brother is a bright flame and he pushes back the shadows. Ironic when the shadows exist because the flame is there to cast them, but it’s impossible to have one without the other.

He whips his phone back out, stopped dead in the motion of gathering his things, and hammers out another email

 

_[[ To: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

_From: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

**_re:I saw your post…_ **

_I’ll come get you. If you’re scared you’ll do something I’ll come and get you. Just say the word ]]_

 

Yancy’s managed to finish bottling all the stock solutions, and has even prepped the ones that need autoclaving. However, now, he feels like he’s moving in slow motion. Like the world around him has suddenly decided to break physics and go faster.

 _Or, maybe_ , a small part of his mind tells him, the hatred in the words clear, _you’re just more broken than you think you are._

Thoughts whirl through his mind like errant gusts of wind, swirling and dancing away before he can even fully focus on them. All he can see, all he can even try to think about, is Raleigh’s smiling face, and the deep, burning ache in his chest when he thinks about the way that smile would be forever ruined if Yancy were to leave Raleigh’s life right now. He doesn’t know why he’s never even bothered to think about it from this angle before, why, even though he’s always been convinced that he’s going to corrupt his brother if he sticks around too long, he’s never even considered the possibility that it’s already happened.

Maybe he’s been too afraid, before. Too blind. Too unwilling to even _consider_ the idea, because Raleigh is the embodiment of all things light and good and _right_. And the idea that he’s already sullied that—that he’d done it without even realizing it, and that it’s, in its own way, so much worse than he could’ve ever imagined—makes all the muscles in his body seize, his fingers numb where his hands are clasped together, the tips of some turning purple.

It’s the soft noise of an email notification that snaps him out of it. His muscles all seem to relax at once, warmth flowing into his hands as the digits ache dully, and he drags his arms up to the desk to switch to his email window. He scans the message, reads it slowly the second time through, and then feels guilt shoot through his veins like molten lead.

 

_[[ To: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

_From: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

**_re:I saw your post…_ **

_Oh my god, no, no, I...shit. I’m sorry if I scared you. I swear, if nothing else, I can promise you this: I will never,_ ever _attempt anything that stupid. I’m well aware that the only way things can never, ever get better is if I actually end them._

_Look at me go. I’ve only known you two days and already I’m sure you probably think I’m a total headcase. I promise I’m not like this normally, it’s just, well, it’s a shock to take a moment and realize that you might’ve fucked up everything without even realizing it. But, no, I’m not going anywhere, I promise._

_And, I mean, yeah it hurts to see him with someone, but there’s a part of me that’s fairly certain if he found someone to be happy with that it’d be that much easier, knowing that, then, I would have_ absolutely _no chance. And if it’s with someone I know and trust? So much the better. But...I mean. I know it’s kind of shitty. But, I guess, the question is, which is shittier: him finding someone, or me just constantly living with this hope eating away at me?_

_Plus, I mean, I do legitimately think that some of the people I know would be good matches for him. Better than me, at any rate._

_Either way, I...thank you. For saying what you did. It helps, I suppose, to keep me from losing my mind completely. I just don’t think I could live with myself (even though I’d have to) if it turned out that I’d_ twisted _him some way. My fucked-up-ness is enough for the two of us, I think. Though, truly, how else are we supposed to be?I mean, I don’t really believe in fate or anything like that, so I don’t think there’s really any other way we could be. Which, when you think about it, is a shitty lot in life: oh hey, let’s all laugh at the guy who’s pining after his brother like a freak. But, I mean, we can’t help it, you’re right. Growing as close as we did, and, in both our cases, having no one left but our brothers...I suppose it’s not really a surprise. It just makes me wonder why I_ did _end up this way but he didn’t. I wish I knew. Although, to be honest, if I knew, I don’t...god, I feel like a piece of shit for admitting this, but if I knew what did it? A way to either make myself not love him or to make him love me? I think...I think I’d make it so that he loved me. We’re, well, like you said, we grew up the way we did, and I think that the main reason I can’t imagine myself with anyone else except for him—ignoring, for a moment, the fact that he’s practically perfect in every way—is because I trust him so much._

 _I don’t think I could ever trust anyone else as much as I trust him. Even though I_ know _he’s going to break my heart, I trust him completely. I suppose, since he can’t help the fact that he’s going to break my heart and I am quite aware of that, it doesn’t really count against him._

_Your brother might be your anchor, but mine...mine is my world. It’s, like everything else to do with this, fucked up and wrong, I’m sure, but. There it is. I would do anything for him. Hell, I tried dating women once upon a time, just so he would have a more ‘normal’ role model for what a functioning relationship was supposed to look like. Yeah. That clearly worked out so well. I think it might contribute, in part, to the way most of his relationships have ended._

_Either way, though, I know I’ll have to leave him eventually. Not by dying, obviously, but one day, I hope, after he finds someone with whom he can be happy. And, on that day, I’ll have to leave him, because he won’t need me anymore. Not in the way I need him. Not even close. And that’s not fair to him._

_Maybe we can actually start our dog farm, then. I still vote for dachshunds. Or maybe welsh terriers. Just so long as we don’t go too close to the Pacific rim, I’ll be good._

_One way or another, I’m going to be okay. It’s okay to be okay._

_Alright, I’m going to send this and then open up a new email responding to your last one. Because we need to change this subject line (it’s a thing) and because I don’t want you to worry. If I were to ever even_ consider _doing something, I promise I’d contact you first. Because I trust you (yes, after two days) to not let me do anything so stupid._

_Again, thanks. I...I don’t know what it is, but I don’t feel quite as much like I’m going to jump out of my skin anymore. ]]_

 

Yancy hits send, then has to hunt for a moment before finding the “Compose” button. It takes him another moment to come up with a subject he deems appropriately non-serious. Once that’s done, he has to scan Lottery’s old email again just to be sure he doesn’t forget anything he wants to say.

 

_[[ To: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

_From: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

**_Our new subject is amazing. No argument. Only acceptance._ **

_Isn’t that the best subject ever?_

_Anyway, I’ve...never actually thought about the threesome idea. Somehow, though, I don’t think my brother would be too likely to go for it. He’s more of a romantic than he lets on, I think, so I’m pretty sure he’s not interested in sharing anyone. Even with me. Though, god, if it were even a possibility? I might jump on it. But, then, I think that maybe being able to be so close and yet so fucking far away would be pure torture. I mean, it’s bad enough seeing the kid strip down in the middle of the apartment and wanting to lick every inch of him. I think if he were actually there, completely and totally naked, I might literally lose my mind._

_I don’t actually have all that many friends, if you can believe it. A handful at most, maybe one or two I hang out with outside work and class. I mean, sure, I have plenty of acquaintances, but not really many people I would consider friends. And then, most of the friends I have are my age. I mean, sure, it used to make me the cool older brother in that I used to get the kid booze sometimes before he was 21 himself. Mostly for his breakups. It’s been a while, though, and he mostly gets it for himself now. Not that he drinks much. Neither of us do, really. I mean, okay, we drink. Just, not like the people who have nothing better to do with their lives except go out to the bars every evening. And, of course, even when we do drink, it falls to me to make sure he takes care of himself. Because if I don’t, then who will? Honestly, I don’t trust anyone else to look out for him, either. I suppose it’s a big brother issue._

_re: Dating. Yeah, after the few failed relationships I had with women, I kind of stopped. Because, like you said (at least, I think you were saying), it never really could work out because none of them were him. And, don’t get me wrong, I’m not the kind of gay guy that finds women repulsive or anything, but, even so, they just...weren’t...him. My brother dates, though I haven’t heard anything about anyone new for a while I guess. But I already told you about that. So I’m not going to waste any more of our time talking about it, haha. Unless you want to, of course, in which case it won’t be wasting it, and...yeah, I’m going to shut up now._

Anyway _, god, you sound like you’re almost as much of a pyro as my brother. He always zeroes in on the biggest fireworks, wants to just watch them go off all night. He’s been that way ever since we introduced him to sparklers as a kid. It’s...kind of adorable, actually. How his face lights up. I don’t know, it’s almost like, for a minute, he’s seeing a reflection of the spark of...whatever...inside of him, and I think it awes him. I don’t think he_ actually _sees it that way, but I do. So. Yeah._

 _I’m going to cut this off here before I_ actually _start shouting lame poetry at you or something. ]]_

 

That done, Yancy lets out a breath, grabbing his list and going back out to the lab to finish whatever he can before the deadline he’d set Raleigh. Even though the kid still hasn't responded—though, given how shitty the reception is in his office, it's entirely possible that he just hasn't gotten said response yet, or that his message to Raleigh still hasn’t gone through—he's still hungry, so he's going to get food regardless. It'd be a lot more fun with his brother, though.

The text comes soon enough, it was just slightly delayed by Raleigh jumping to conclusions and giving himself a small heart attack about the safety of his friend. Even if it _is_ only two days, he feels more connected to this guy- this guy who’s name he didn’t even know- than almost anyone else. Funny how your secrets could bring you so close. There’s safety in the shadows and all that, after all. Isn’t that the saying?

The first email comes through and Raleigh breathes a deep sigh of relief and packs the rest of his things, giving a brief smile to the girl across from him before shouldering his pack and making for the exit.

He types a small reply to his brother saying he’s en route and will be a few minutes before pulling over to lean against the brick of the library’s exterior to answer the email. By then he’s received the second and smiles lightly at the subject change. For as heavy as their conversations are it feels good to have them. Like poking a little hole in his skin to relieve the pressure building beneath it.

 

_[[ To: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

_From: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

**_re:Our new subject is amazing. No argument. Only acceptance._ **

_Much better subject, I approve. On the move so I’ll keep it short but I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re alright. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a basket case (any more than I am, anyway) but if you do ever feel like it’s too much please talk to me. I think you’re a good guy and I like to think you’d be there for me, too. I guess you don’t know what it’s like to have someone taking care of you..so let me. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to call someone kiddo. I promise not to terrorize you too much. Maybe. ;)_

_No promises if you send me poetry, though._

_More later ]]_

 

Good. His friend was alright. Maybe he’d gotten a little ahead of himself but Raleigh would rather jump ahead and work back than not jump far enough in a situation like that. He can’t imagine what he would do if he’d let this guy fall through the cracks. He’d never forgive himself.

But it feels nice to know that isn’t the case and if it ever were his friend would contact him. It makes Raleigh slightly obsessive about keeping his phone on and charged but he’s basically attached to the thing anyway so it’s not that much of a stretch. Mini heart attack over, he pockets his phone and makes for Yancy’s lab.

A brisk walk gets him there fifteen minutes later. He’s not exactly a stranger to the place and he stops to flirt with the receptionist for a few minutes, stealing a peppermint from the bowl on her desk and pulling the cellophane open with his teeth. She’s nice enough and he knows she likes it, so why not. She’s a sweet old lady, she gives him candy, and she’s the gate keeper to his brother’s work. Carol Fitzgerald is a Friend You Want To Have.

Pleasantries are exchanged, they chat for a moment about the newest picture of her cat Rory and he tells her about his hopes of going to Paris in a few months. She asks him about his studies and he answers that they’d be better if his brother weren’t always working.

“All work and no play makes the Beckets dull boys.” She says and Raleigh agrees, rocking back on his heels. “Precisely why I’m here to get him for lunch. Maybe someday we’ll get a vacation, huh?” And god, does he ever need one. but it might be better to vacation separately at this point. As shitty as that is.

Okay so maybe Raleigh has a few reasons for wanting to do fashion week. 

Carol gives a smirk and gives him another mint before shooing him down the hall.

And he almost makes it to Yancy’s station, too. Almost. He can see it, but wouldn’t you know that’s when Max comes around the corner and the two stop and give each other a long look. Max has the kind of face that you either want to kiss or punch. Raleigh has found himself wanting to do both but has ever actually done either. He doesn’t know what it is about the guy, but they just rub each other the wrong way and always have.

Yancy says they need to fuck it out. Raleigh wonders if he’s right.

“You’re not allowed in here.” Max says, shifting his weight. “No staff badge no entry.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that...and yet.” Raleigh answers with a shrug and his best smile, giving a vague gesture as if to say _welp, sucks to be you_. Max’s dark eyes watch him with an intensity Raleigh hasn’t seen in many and they stand off for another few seconds, electricity crackling between them before he decides _fuck it_. As much as he’d love a good fight right now he promised not to start anything in the lab.

“Hey Yance!” He calls loudly, announcing his presence to anyone within ear shot and making for the center of the room, eye contact not wavering. “Yo, bro time for lunch! Put your cells down I’ve come to liberate you.”

Raleigh gives Max a wink and turns the corner into his brother’s area. At least where he thinks Yancy is most likely to be, tucked into what Raleigh is pretty sure is the lair of a mad scientist. He doesn’t even know what they do here. They could be cloning monsters for all he knows. Making sharks with laserbeams on their heads or something. Hell, if that was the case Raleigh probably would try to get a job here. Alas, his experience in the field is limited to paper mache volcanoes and throwing bottles of Coke with Mentos in them. 

“Marco..?” He calls, sauntering in. Steeling himself for interaction with his brother and hating himself that he has to.

Yancy’s walking out of the hood room, his arms wrapped around two ice buckets filled with tubes of media and various other components, when he hears his brother’s voice followed by Max’s equally deep rumble. He pauses for a moment, listening, before he hears Raleigh’s voice moving off. If his guess is right, the kid’s looking for him at his bench. Sure, it might _look_ like a mad scientist worked there, but to Yancy it’s highly organized and structured: just the way he likes it.

Yancy also may or may not relish in the way Max jumps when he puts his buckets down a bit more forcefully than is strictly necessary, plastic tubes rattling. Hansen, judging by the flush coating his freckles, obviously felt like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been. The flush only deepens when he catches sight of Yancy, and, alright, maybe Yancy’s a bit of an asshole, because the first thing that comes out of his mouth is, “You staring at my brother’s ass, Hansen? Because I like you, but I _will_ kill you.”

Max’s eyes flash green as he rolls them, pink tinging his cheeks as he crosses his arms in a gesture that Yancy can’t help but read as defensive.

“Oh, fuck off, Yance.”

“And on top of that,” Yancy continues blithely, opening the fridge and giving the kid—and, really, since he was the only undergrad in the lab now that Vic had moved on to his master’s, Yancy felt much more justified in calling him that—his shoulder as he speaks towards the racks of tubes he’s busy organizing, “he’s a student, so stop giving him that shit about staff badges. This is still a university last time I checked.”

“But it’s fucking _summer_ —”

“And you’re still here,” Yancy cuts off the tirade before it can even begin. “And classes are still happening. And he’s my _brother_.”

On the last word he levels Max with a soft glare, and the kid at least has the decency to look contrite at that. Yancy can see the thought forming in his eyes— _he’s not a scientist, Yance. He shouldn’t be allowed to just wander in here_ —knows exactly what it is because he’s heard him lay almost identical words at Raleigh’s feet before, and makes an annoyed twitch of his head to the side.

“Oh for god’s… Hey Rals!” He raises his voice and neck slightly to angle his words over the top of the metal door. “Promise Max here that you won’t break anything in the five seconds it’ll take me to put my stuff away. I know you’re a big boy, kid, and I know you can take care of yourself, but apparently _some people_ ,” the look he sends Max is hard, and as annoyed as he can make it—a part of him refuses to stop whispering about how quiet and reserved the kid normally seems to be except when Raleigh’s around so don’t you think this is kind of unfair?—without being outright hostile, “seem to have lower opinions of you. To the detriment of my sanity.”

He slams the door shut, moving past Max to get to the freezer, takes the few seconds necessary to make sure he’s putting his tubes back in the proper racks, then turns away and strides into his office. It only takes him another ten seconds at most to grab his wallet and, after a moment’s consideration, his car keys. Just in case.

“Well..” Raleigh answers and leans against a table, idly brushing his hand over the cold metal surface as his brother flays the kid, yet again. “I wish I could promise you that, brother, but I’m just a dumb jock model who can’t tie his shoes.”

At that he pointedly looks back at Max, watching him from under his lashes with a small, twisted smirk. There’s a weird air in the lab whenever Raleigh comes in and he’s not sure why, but it makes him want to push all the pretty glass tubes onto the floor and watch them shatter.

Or maybe he just fucking hates everyone assuming he’s the dumb little brother.

And, okay, so maybe he is the dumb little brother, who cares. How is he ever supposed to live up to Yancy—who is literally good at _everything_ —anyway. But damn if it doesn’t make him want to throw a punch when it’s shoved in his face.

“Hey,” He says, actively challenging Max from across the space when Yancy goes to grab his wallet. Raleigh gestures to some complicated looking piece of equipment a foot or so away and moves to hover a hand near it. “This thing looks pretty cool..”

“Don’t!”

“Aw, c’mon I can’t see it?”

“I said don’t touch it!”

“I just wanna see if it’ll bounce...”

“YANCY!” Max yells. No, they literally can’t be left alone for ten seconds.

“C’mon man-”

“If you touch that I will actually come over there—”

“And what?” Raleigh’s smile gets tight. Daring.

Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with him.

Yancy freezes as the words wander over to him, hand still in his pocket, and his vision goes red.

The last time Raleigh had come in the lab, Yancy had been out of the lab on one of Dr. Geiszler’s random-ass assignments. He’d come back to the tail end of what looked to be a one-sided argument, his brother leaning against his door with a smirk that told Yancy the kid was seconds away from laughing, and Max hurling obscenities at him. It’d been the first time that Yancy had actually heard the undergrad’s Australian accent really come out, and that combined with the shouting and the fact that his brother was the target of the vitriol had made him simply block out the words. He’d bumped Max’s shoulder with his own gently, giving him a pointed look that’d had the kid shutting up and looking away almost bashfully, face flaming bright enough to match his hair.

Like he’d told Raleigh, _usually_ a nice kid.

Now, though, he has to close his eyes for a moment and breathe deeply for a few seconds, counting his inhales and exhales until he reaches ten before exiting his office. Though the smile he stretches over his face as he leans against the wall, in sight of both his brother and coworker, is completely fake, he pulls at the muscles until he’s convinced himself it looks real enough. He and Max are going to have words later; now isn’t the time, and he’s fucking _starving_. He even adds an exasperated eye roll for effect.

“Rals, cut it out. Max, it’s a gelblock, _you’ve_ dropped them before. Stop acting like it’s a hypercentrifuge or made of glass or something. Anyway,” he pushes himself off the wall, gesturing for his brother to follow him with a tilt of his head, “let’s go kiddo. Daylight’s a-wasting.”

Raleigh might say something to Max in parting; Yancy doesn’t know. He’s already out the door, brittle smile shattered into pieces, hands in his pockets. When Raleigh comes back into the hallway, Yancy fixes him with a _look_. Of course, that also means he spends an extended period of time staring at his brother, and _fuck_ , the kid’s plaintive expression, the way his eyes are shining like that, should not make his anger fade as quickly as it does.

“No one is ever allowed to say that about you, alright?” Yancy forces the words out before Raleigh’s fucking puppy-dog looks completely drain the rest of his ire. “ _No one_. You are _not_ some stupid, simpering model. You are Raleigh _fucking_ Becket. You’re the kid who’s had to deal with shit that would make other _adults_ give up and has come out smiling. You are fucking _smart_ , Rals. And amazing, _okay_? _Never_ let anyone tell you otherwise; never let _anyone_ make you feel like less of a person just because you’re fucking beautiful. Not even me. You’re—”

Yancy has to snap his teeth shut to keep himself from saying the words hovering on the tip of his tongue— _perfect_ , _everything_ , _mine_ —and starts when he realizes that he’d, at some point, crossed the space between them and is gripping his brother by the shoulders, shaking him gently. He takes two steps back so fast he’s surprised he doesn’t fall on his ass and fishes his car keys from his pocket with one hand, twirling them around a finger while the other hand is busy rubbing at his neck. He can’t look his brother in the eye, and his face feels too warm. _Fuck_ , what is _wrong_ with him?

And then the words he’d _actually_ _said_ manage connect within his brain, and he nearly has a fucking meltdown right then and there, the teeth that’d been absently gnawing on his lip biting down until he tastes blood. His mind claws desperately for a subject change, reaching for something, _anything_.

“I, uh, sorry about that, Rals. So, uh, what’re you in the mood for?”

Even to his own ears, the words sound strained, but it’s the best he can manage.

Yeah, strained, no fucking kidding.

Raleigh just stares at him. It had all happened so quickly. One minute they’re leaving and Raleigh is winking at Max, victoriously strolling out after his brother and the next minute Yancy is coaching him on his self worth. And then, even faster, Yancy’s got him by the shoulders and then jumps back like Raleigh has bitten him or something.

It’s all just...confusing.

So he stares. He stares and idly holds his shoulder where Yancy had held him. Gentle. He isn’t hurt. He’s just...processing. Feeling the last lingering traces of Yancy’s grasp. Thinking about how much he misses being normal. Or at least how much he misses not constantly obsessing about how abnormal he really is.

How much he wishes Yancy would grab him like that and shove him up against the wall. How he wishes he’d crush him and then claim him and tear his fingers through Raleigh’s hair. Kiss him and bite his lips and grind against his cock. He could say all that stuff again..about being good..and smart and beautiful..

About being worth something.

It’s not that Raleigh doesn’t think he is, he has a good handle on himself, but it doesn’t hurt to hear, you know? He craves the positive reinforcement, flourishes under it.

“Um.” He clears his throat and shakes his head lightly to beat the fantasies away. “What about...tacos? Dunno why but..”

A beat and he shrugs, moving back towards the outside world. Another beat and he considers asking if Yancy is alright. He’s flushed and being weird..but who knows. In the end he decides to leave it. He isn’t in the best of shape right now, either, and it probably shows.

He just keeps thinking about that line in one of his friend’s emails.

_[[ ...but if I knew what did it? A way to either make myself not love him or to make him love me? I think...I think I’d make it so that he loved me. ]]_

It’s dark..and selfish..but Raleigh finds himself repeating it over and over in his head. And he knows what he would do. If there were a way..he’d make Yancy love him, too.

Which makes him want to run and have a breakdown somewhere, but he can’t. So that little gem gets stuffed back down and he tries his damnedest to lock it away. He can’t be like this. He can’t keep going on like this. Not when every little thing sets him off. It’s all just getting worse and worse and he can’t handle it. Even with an outlet online. Even with a friend. So he moves swiftly on and changes the subject.

“Hey, uh. What are we doing for the fourth?”

Yancy’s already running through the list of local Mexican food places in his mind at his brother’s answer, the two of them heading for the external door.

“You mean aside from setting off that big, blue, call-to-the-fire-department waiting to happen?” He’s proud of how steady he’s managing to hold his voice, how he’s somehow kept himself from tripping over his own damn feet in his agitation. He tries to embrace the normalcy of the situation: just two brothers talking on their way to get lunch together. It wasn’t like he’d nearly—or not-so-nearly-more-like-actually—verbally assaulted Raleigh, or nearly let something as small as a high-school-level insult directed at his brother completely unravel him. Nope. That totally hadn’t just happened.

However, when he glances over toward where Raleigh’s walking beside him, the kid shortening his normally-longer strides so that their feet strike the floor in tandem—Yancy’s not entirely sure the kid even knows he’s doing it—the smile that pulls at his lips is completely real this time, and the cold weight in his chest abates somewhat. He doubts they’re _done_ with the conversation—hell, _he’s_ not done with it yet—but he finds himself more willing to let it go for a while. To just have a good time with his brother.

“I dunno. I think Tendo invited us to his and Alison’s. Probably a party or something.” A shrug, his smile widening, because, if he knows those two like he thinks he does, then it won’t be just a party; there’ll probably be an orgy in one of the rooms somewhere before the night ends. “Might give you a chance to show off that monster of yours to a few people beyond just the usual block party.”

He pauses to wave at Carol as they pass her desk, making for the double doors at the building’s front. He thinks he might catch a twinkle in her eye as she waves back, said twinkle being directed at Raleigh, and Yancy almost rolls his eyes. Of course. He can’t help the low chuckle that works its way from his throat before he starts talking again.

“And, uh, I promise I heard you when you said tacos. Though, I’m not exactly feeling tacos at the moment,” he gently nudges Raleigh’s shoulder with his own as they walk, the air handling system whooshing around them as they exit the building, and tries to grin; after all, that’s a perfectly normal thing to do, right? Make a joke about his little revelation last night? A bit of crude humor to lighten the mood? He’s pretty sure brothers are supposed to do that sort of thing? “Maybe a burrito, though, and Adam was telling me about a new Mexican place that opened up just down the street. He said their beef is, in his words, ‘fucking phenomenal,’ and that their burritos are abnormally huge. Too much to handle at one time, anyway.”

Okay, he really needs to shut up. He can practically feel the hole he’s digging himself into with this extended metaphor. His teeth snap shut on their own when the grass they’d been crossing to reach the parking lot gives way to actual asphalt, and, damn, he always forgets that step up.

“Did you hear back from the Marshal? You did message him back, right?”

Raleigh laughs lightly at his brother’s stumble and gives him a look, hands in his pockets.

“Yeees, but oh my god, man you need to get laid.” He laughs, ignoring the little pain in his side from having said it.  “Quickly, before you ruin mexican food for me forever.”

Because he can see that being a thing that happens.

“But you know..I mean, I’m sure you could handle a whole burrito if you practice. Just don’t take too much too fast. You gotta pace yourself.”

Is he really giving sex advice to his older brother using mexican food...he’s pretty sure he is. Dear God, please strike him down where he stands right now before this gets any more awkward. Or, you know, he could just make it worse for himself as they head for the car. Raleigh is casual as you like. Maybe this is the answer. Maybe finding someone for Yancy is going to solve the issue. Put another barrier or twelve between them so that he can function at a normal level. Maybe Yancy just having his heart set on someone isn’t enough.

Maybe Raleigh has to actually physically put that barrier there for it to make a difference.

“I’m gonna take you out.” He says abruptly as they get to the car. “Find you a giant beef burrito. Saturday night, okay?”

Yancy nearly chokes as he fumbles with his seatbelt, only managing to slot it into place after three tries; smoothe, he thinks to himself.

“Kid, the _last_ thing I need right now is to get laid,” _unless it’s by you_ his mind unhelpfully adds, “and, jesus, okay, I think we’re taking this whole Mexican food thing too far. Although, if you’re willing, I haven’t ever really, y’know—” he makes a vague hand gesture hoping it, somehow, generally indicates his lack of guy-on-guy sexual experience “— _done_ anything like that before, with, ah, _burritos_ —” apparently he still hasn’t given up on the mexican food thing “—so I uh, I guess, yeah, I could  probably use some help?”

The words that’d _actually_ come out of his mouth catch up with his brain, and Yancy nearly yanks the wheel sideways as his entire body jerks, his face flaming. Thankfully, he needs to get into the left-hand lane to turn into the place they’re going in about a mile and a half, so obviously he’d planned on doing it the whole time. Clearly. Because imagining his brother _coaching_ him, firsthand— _shut up brain_ —in things like the proper way to take a dick?

Not a mental image he can really handle right now. Or ever.

Christ, how did he think this was a good idea again? Only a few minutes in and already he’s hard in his pants.

Oh. That’s right. It’d been because he’s Raleigh’s brother. And he loves the kid. And enjoys being around him. Even if he wants to rip the clothes from the kid’s body and lick the taste from every inch of skin. Wants to hear the kinds of noises he makes as he’s spilling himself down Yancy’s throat—

Yeah, okay, he _really_ needs to stop.

“A-and, you know no one’s gonna be out on Saturday, right? They’ll probably still be hungover from all the parties on Friday. Like the one Tendo invited us to. Which means we’re probably going to be among the hungover, if he and Alison have anything to say about it.”

Raleigh grunts and shrugs in his seat. Yancy has a fair point and he affirms that with a light shrug, one hand pushing up into his face as he leans his elbow in the window well of the door. Truth be told there are a lot of things going on and his head can’t quite keep up. There are the three separate conversations he and his brother are having at once _out loud_ , the various conversations they’re simultaneously having in silence, his own inward struggle, his online friend’s struggle and Yancy’s unrequited love struggle. That’s a lot of struggle for a verbal to and fro about burritos. And so he decides to simplify.

And as much as he hurts to do it, he decides to offer help. It’s the right thing to do and self sacrifice is second nature at this point.

“Yance..whatever you wanna know about, uh, burritos? You can ask me. I’m willing.” Very willing, he thinks. “It’s not weird or anything.” Yes it is.

And then he smiles and sinks down in his seat a little, rests his knee, not foot yeah yeah, on the dash and clasps his hands over his stomach.

“Imagine that. I’m the one giving _you_ the birds and the bees.”

Because he has to take this lightly, right? Because taking it too personally _would_ be weird and then suspicious and then it might all unravel and the world would explode and he’d be dead. The end. Good bye.

Sure, he basically learned how to jerk off from Yancy but they’re too old for that now. Even though he’s basically just offered. God damnit. What the fuck is he doing.

Apparently slowly driving himself insane.

Yancy laughs. Loudly. And, okay, maybe a little obnoxiously. Has to stop himself and force his eyes open or risk read-ending another car stopped at the exit from the parking lot, waiting for an opening in the traffic. He flips on his indicator as he slows them to a halt, waiting for either a hole to appear or the light to change. The laughter had done its job, though, and he feels whatever’s left of the tension that’d been following him from the lab just...bleed out of him. And that, right there, is just one of a million reason why he loves his brother.

“Yeah, well, at least you didn’t have to get it from dad. The pregnancy talk was the worst. I mean, hell, you would’ve thought that I’d slept with fifteen girls without protection or something, the way he was going on. Didn’t even wanna hear, ‘No, Dad, it was just one, and protection was definitely used, oh, and, by the way, didn’t really like it all that much, so not planning on a repeat unless I have to.’ Yeah. Nah,” he shakes his head, releasing a mental sigh of relief when the light burns green and they inch out onto the street proper, “that was the worst, man. I don’t imagine you can do anything more horrifying than that.”

He’s trying to remember which street Adam said this place was on, and mentally counts how far away they are—about six blocks more until their turn, and then another seven after that.  It’s not _terribly_ far, but it’s just easier to drive. Besides, the town’s population decreases by about half when it’s summer, so it’s not like parking really becomes an issue anyway. And he really is hungry. Really wants one of those burritos and now. His stomach makes an unruly sound as he gets into the left lane so he can turn in three blocks without having to fight nonexistent traffic.

“Although, uh, maybe you can learn from Dad and leave practical demonstrations out of it until later? Y’know,” he laughs and glances over at Raleigh in the passenger’s seat, “when they won’t give everyone involved nightmares?” The memory of their father showing him how to put a condom on a banana was probably one of the more scarring moments of Yancy’s childhood.

Raleigh laughs, bemused as they drive.

“I shall endeavor to resist the temptation,” He says, followed quickly with an “I’d say just watch a lot of porn? But the practical stuff..you just have to kind of figure out. Be smart, you know? There’s not like a guide or anything. Congratulations,” He says, panning a hand across the air as though he were showing something off. “You’re gay! Here’s your starter kit complete with low calorie lube, crippling social anxiety and step by step instructions for anal sex. You’ll notice on page eleven we recommend you not stick anything embarrassing up there because the internet _will_ find out and they will all laugh at your excruciating pain.”

Damn his brother for being able to make him laugh to effortlessly; it’s really not fair, and it’s making it difficult for Yancy to focus on driving. He nearly misses his turn, but manages to slow the car down enough to not roll them.

“I’ve had anal sex, kid. Once.” His face flames because, okay, this is not going the way he’d imagined it—which is to say, he didn’t wake up today and _plan_ on discussing gay sex with his brother. “And, uh, it wasn’t with a guy, so I obviously wasn’t on the receiving end of things. It was also, er,” Yancy wills himself not blush any darker than he already is, can tell he fails from how hot his face feels, “it was before I was really comfortable with the whole ‘liking guys’ thing, I guess.”

He swallows, forcing himself to take a breath and pull his mind out of the memories, out of the half-truths. He’d known he was into guys at the time: problem was that he’d only been into _Raleigh_ at the time. It’d been high school, and the girl—his first girlfriend—had seemed to enjoy it, even though he’d been relatively silent throughout it all, desperately hoping he didn’t shout his brother’s name in the middle of things.

“Anyway,” Yancy clears his throat, “I hope that starter kit also involves a pamphlet or something on how to cope with falling for the perfect man who doesn’t even look at you—straight or otherwise. ‘Cause, y’know, that’s the kind of advice I think I need most of all at this point.”

And wouldn’t that just be ironic: Raleigh giving him advice on how he could get over Raleigh. Yancy has to keep himself from chuckling ruefully; ironic indeed.

“If it does I never got a copy.” He answers, the words slipping past him traitorous lips before he can catch them.

Raleigh can feel his own cheeks burn when he realizes what he’s said but he’s smart enough to know there’s no recovery so the best thing he can do is just hope that goes quietly unnoticed. Which, knowing his brother, it absolutely wont.

“Craig Davis, before you ask. Straight as an arrow. Never knew I existed.”

Not at all his wiser, gorgeous older brother. God, he’s such an idiot. But he chooses to focus on his little lie over piecing together the idea of Yancy buried deep in someone. In him. It makes his stomach clench and turn and he has to roll down the window for some fresh air. Sink down a little lower in the passenger seat.

Yancy glances over at his brother, eyebrow cocked, before he returns his attention to the road.

“His loss, then, kiddo. Any guy would be lucky to have you.”

He has to fight to keep his voice level as he says it, but he’s fairly certain he manages. Then, though, because he can’t resist,

“Though, you sure he never knew you existed? Pretty sure everyone at school knew who you were. At least when I was still there. ‘Specially after, well, Mom…”

Alright, way to kill any joking he might’ve been going for. Good job, brain. Talk about your dead mother and how everyone at school knew. Great. Just...shut up.

“And, I-I mean,” Yancy stutters for just a moment, taking a breath and pulling himself back together as he turns into the parking lot, “if not for that, well, I, uh, I’m pretty sure I heard some straight guys talking about you. Might’ve had to knock their heads in for thinking impure thoughts about my baby brother,” okay, he can manage a smirk at that, “but there ya go. No one, man or woman, gay or straight, is immune to your charms. So, go you.”

Yeah, lame finish, but whatever. Yancy’s not actually sure where he was gonna go with that, just that, the more it’d dragged on, the more it’d gone from him talking about those other guys—who actually _had_ existed, or still do, probably, assuming they’re not dead yet—to himself.

“ _Anyway_ ,  we’re here.”

 “Y-yeah..right.” So they are. And wow, nothing quite says...well. Raleigh doesn’t actually know what the hell just came out of his brother’s mouth but it didn’t seem to say much. He fixes him with a quizzical look somewhere between _was that english_ and _are you high_ before unbuckling and opening the car door. He gets out and then leans back in, forearm braced on the roof.

“Are you okay, man?” This is a _level with me_ moment. He’s concerned, brows gently drawn, lips pursed.

“You’ve been weird all day. You keep jumping..and I think you nearly ran off the road just now, like, twice. We only drove a few blocks..”

Not to mention whatever it was that happened in the hallway before.

“This guy really has you strung out.” And that is one thing he is Absolutely Not Okay With.

Yancy pulls the key from the ignition and rubs at his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m fine, Rals.” It’s not the best lie Yancy’s ever dished out, but, hey, when his brother’s unwittingly talking about himself? What else can he say? “It’s just been, well, an interesting day, I suppose you could say.”

Yancy fixes Raleigh with a smile, turning away when he opens his door and steps out. Props his arms on the roof in a mimic of his brother, looking at the kid over the top of the car. He’s not quite sure what his face looks like in this moment, can’t be bothered to really to school his features into anything particular. He _wants_ to be honest, _wants_ to tell Raleigh that he’s sorry he’s being so weird, sorry for being...whatever he’s being, really, that’s making his brother give him that look. He’s trying, he’s truly, honestly, trying to just be...normal. To not let his shit get in-between them.

However, the longer Raleigh keeps looking at him, keeps giving him that damn look that practically _compels_ Yancy to honesty...he finds his chin dropping onto his forearms.

“Alright, fine, yeah. It’s been kinda hard lately, I guess. But, I mean,” he shrugs, “it’s been hard for a while now. ‘M sorry that you have to see me on one of my days where I’m, I dunno, I guess you could say closer to cracking.”

Yancy sighs, lifts his head, and steps back, shutting the door. Forces himself to smile a second time in as many moments.

“How about this, then? If I start getting too gloomy or depressing, punch me in the arm or something. Although,” he cocks an eyebrow at his brother, the smile becoming all that much more real, “if you do it too hard, don’t expect I won’t retaliate, kiddo. Now, c’mon,” tilting his head, Yancy beckons over his shoulder, “let’s go get food. You can tell me all about the ins and outs of fitting a dick up your ass while we eat. Maybe,” okay, yeah, that smile is definitely a smirk now, “frighten a few moms and scar their children. Sound good?”

Raleigh looks unimpressed for a moment before forcing a smile. Acting, he thinks in Patrick Stewart’s voice, which actually does make him smile, though for a completely different reason.

“Yeah, Yance. Sounds good.”

Only Yancy is so full of shit. And he always _always_ does this. But Raleigh knows pushing at his brother’s safety blanket of light humor and subject changes, while result yielding, is due to start a fight and he really just doesn’t have the heart for it. Not right now. Not when everything else is so shitty. But this isn’t over. He’s not going to let it go.

Raleigh closes his door and follows quietly, thumb tucked behind his belt buckle as he saunters.

“Rule number one, don’t perpetuate any rapey stereotypes.” He says as they enter, funneling into the natural flow of the place. It smells..amazing and his stomach growls as if to agree. He flicks an appraising glance over his brother.

“Speaking of stereotypes..if someone tries to stick you in one and it doesn’t feel right? They’re not worth it. Doesn’t matter who they are.”

It’s simple advice but he feels like it needs to be said, even in front of the counter girl who waits patiently before taking their order. It’s something he wishes he’d known. For a long time, and even a little bit now, there was a pressure to identify with something. Top, bottom, bear, twink, whatever. And sometimes that’s fine..sometimes people need that, but he figures being pressured into picking one and defining yourself with it is wrong any way you look at it. He gets it enough at work, anyway. Really, at the end of the day, he’d rather just be him and not have to worry about what that means.

In an ideal world that would include his current foremost problem but he doesn’t see that ever happening.

Yancy’s stomach growls loudly as he watches the men and women in the kitchen working, the smells coming from their stations heavenly and so, so tempting. He pays for their food, waving away Raleigh’s attempts to give him money, and checks the number on their receipt before steering them over to stand by a chest-height barrier separating them from the tables. He nods at Raleigh’s first piece of advice, while the second draws a laugh out of him.

“Kid, I’m a guy who wants to sleep with other guys and who is also in science. Albeit,” he tilts his head to the side on concession, “not professionally beyond the fact that I work in a lab, but still. I’m a walking contradiction in today’s world. Besides—”

It rather suddenly occurs to him that Raleigh might not’ve been talking about social stereotypes, but rather—

“—if you mean different ‘stereotypes’ during, ah, ‘gentleman’s time’,” he gives the words—a turn of phrase he’d picked up from Vic the kid uses to describe masturbation—the mental and verbal air quotes they deserve, “then, I guess, if my dreams are anything to go by, then I’m...I don’t really conform to any stereotypes. Go me for being special.”

Yancy makes a small, sarcastic fistpump, lifting one corner of his mouth in a small smile before turning serious once more.

“So what’s rule two?”

“Rule number two is that you never say ‘gentleman’s time’ ever again,” Raleigh answers, brows pinned high with amusement and secondhand embarrassment. It does have a certain ring to it, though. He might need to save that for later as a new code word for a thorough ball scratching.

“And for what it’s worth, there is such a thing as a guy who likes guys who also does science. Because work has anything to do with it.”

Dhur, but whatever.

“I mean, I’d date a scientist,” He shrugs, ears perked to hear their order called and when it is he practically pounces, collecting up the order and nodding for Yancy to find a spot to sit. Hot, smart, likes cock..sounds pretty perfect. Gee, wonder why.

“Ha! I mean, sure, if you wanna,” Yancy takes the seat across from his brother, crossing his legs under the table and reaching for the bag to claim his beef burrito, “although, I didn't quite mean it like that. More like. While we do exist, we science gays are few and far between. I mean, sure, I joke about my bosses both needing to fuck it out of their systems, but the odds that they're both actually jonesing for each other's dicks? Pretty damn low."

He unfolds the foil from his food and takes a bite, moaning loudly as the flavors explode across his tongue, then chews and swallows before continuing.

"But, I mean, if you wanna date a gay scientist? That's your thing. I wouldn't recommend it though. Too wrapped up in their work, usually."

Another bite. He considers his next words while he chews, swallows his fear along with his food; tries to keep his next words nonchalant.

"I mean. I don't have to worry about that, since, y'know, I'm not interested in a scientist. But, hell kid," his thoughts turn to Max, to imagining the kid dating Raleigh—or, at least, getting whatever bullshit there is between them out of their systems—to imagining them locked together, tongues tangling, moaning into one another's mouths, and—

Yancy shakes his head. Takes a sip from his drink.

"If you wanna go for it, fuck, then go for it. And more power to you." A smirk. "Any biologist who's had any anatomy should, I hope, be pretty decent in bed, if nothing else."

“Ngn..” Yancy gets in the form of a grunt via mouthful of burrito. Not a scientist, huh. Interesting. The process of elimination begins. “We’ll see. If it happens it happens.”

Raleigh decides to play it off as cool as he can. Max has crossed his mind as well, fleetingly, but he’s never actually considered it. Though, he wonders if a good fuck would get the little jerk off his ass.

“Right now I think I’m focusing more on the unobtainable.” He says, glancing up quickly from under long lashes. “Must run in the family.”

“Yeah,  I guess, I—” Yancy nearly chokes on his next bite of food. He glances up at Raleigh, at the way the kid is _looking_ at him, at the way that look is so full of some meaning that Yancy can almost read, can almost understand, except for the one piece of information he’s missing.

There’s no fucking way, he finds himself screaming mentally. There’s no fucking way the kid feels the same way. No way he’s saying what it sounds, to Yancy’s mind, like he’s saying. A spike of panic shoots down his spine, and he forces it away with practiced ease as he sucks another mouthful of lemonade through his straw. He has to take a moment to mentally reassure himself, to remind himself that there’s no way Raleigh _knows_ , either. That his brother’s not about to leave him, that things are fine, that—

Yancy’s drink runs out, and he’s left sucking on air bubbles, the remnants of his drink shooting through the straw to coat the back of his throat as his straw makes an obvious slurping noise. He coughs for a second, breaking his thoughts out of their dangerous spiral, before blinking and fixing Raleigh with a stare.

“So, wait, you have someone you’re pining after too, kid?” A pause as he considers, then, “ _Fuck_ , no wonder— _shit_ , I am so sorry that I keep—fuck, I am the _worst_ brother ever, throwing guys at you like you’re—”

Yancy takes a breath, the exhale coming out slightly watery from his drink gone wrong, before he tries to speak again, to keep his words more coherent this time.

“I’m sorry that I’ve been throwing guys at you like it’s the solution to world hunger. Is that why you haven’t dated since...well, since?”

Raleigh shakes his head and opts for a similar stalling tactic, forcing himself to stay cool.

Stay cool.

_Stay cool._

But damnit he could never lie to his brother and _why did he just say that, Rals you are such a fucking idiot_. It was too close. That was way too fucking close.

“It’s fine. I’ve just been busy. School and work and making your life hell pretty much takes up all my time.”

Somewhere in the back of his head he wonders if talking with my new friend is making him a little more obvious..or eager..like talking it out with someone somehow justifies actually acting on it. Or if it’s all just coming out a little more now because this is the first time he and his brother have really sat down and talked in a long time. And now he remembers why he’s been avoidant.

Another bite. Another moment to stall. Another blurted truth.

“I don’t think I’m really ready to get my heart broken again. You know what I’m like.”

He never could pick the good ones.

“I’ll get over it.” Raleigh goes on, forcing a one shoulder shrug. Shut it down. Shut it down, _now_. Not like, you know, he’s been pining for years but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that it’s been the reason he always ends up in short lived relationships because they can never be who he wants and wishes they were. That he pours himself into it anyway in the hopes that the person can sweep him away and cut all these threads tying him to Yancy.

They never can. And when the relationship fails, as it always does, he’s right back on the couch in a pile of misery with his head in his brother’s lap wishing he was dead. Or someone else entirely. Or adopted. That would make things easier.

“This guy, though,” Raleigh doesn’t look up when he asks. “Do I know him?”

Yancy’s torn between laughing hysterically and sliding around the table to wrap his brother in a hug. Not because the kid is obviously distressed or anything—because he’s _not_ —but more out of big brother protective instincts. Raleigh, his beautiful, perfectly flawed little brother Raleigh, is pining after someone again. Probably another asshole who’ll lead him to nothing but heartbreak, and, as much as the kid says he’ll get over it, Yancy knows. Knows from too many nights with a sixpack and a whimpering bundle of limbs how well that’s gonna go. Knows that, no matter how much he wants to find and pre-emptively strangle whatever asshole is going to probably hurt his brother, he can’t.

Knows that, no matter how much the thought— _I could be so much better for you Rals I would never hurt you I’ll never leave you I’ll always be there for you_ —swirls in his mind, he can never give it voice, can never even _think_ of promising it aloud.

Instead, all he says, all he does, is drop his own gaze from where Raleigh’s not looking at him, trying to keep his own voice under control as he says, “I, uh, I guess you could say that. I wouldn’t call him a friend of yours or anything—” _technically true_ , his mind whispers even as guilt churns low in his gut, “—but yeah. You know who he is.”

He takes another bite from his own food, chews, swallows, the flavors not seeming nearly as bright as they had a moment ago. Maybe it’s because he’s not as desperately hungry. Maybe it’s the way, when he glances up at his brother, Raleigh’s still not looking at him. Still looks perfectly normal: perfectly blank.

“So, hey,” Yancy’s never been able to stand it when his brother gets like this, so obviously hiding something that’s hurting him—he has to fix it somehow, even if that involves something as unhelpful as just distracting the kid, “you said something about castings and stuff soon, right? Anything specific you wanna do?” He casts his memory back, trying to think, before adding, “I know you said fashion week in New York and Calvin Klein. Anything else? Or is that really all this is for?”

Ah, yes. Yancy changes the subject. Raleigh isn’t sure if it should come as a welcome relief or if he should be annoyed because now that he knows that he _knows_ whomever it is, it’s gonna drive him ever more crazy. And seeing as Yancy has changed the conversation, diverting it away from himself like he _always does_ , he’s lost his opportunity to ask. Another piece of information for the frustration pile. Yay.

“Oh- uuuh?” Right. Work. That thing he does. “Well the point of castings is to get as many jobs as possible but if I walk for Kein then it’s a lot easier to get in with the other big names. I’d like to try to get Givenchy and there’s this party coming up.. did I mention that? Networking thing The Marshal wants me to go to? I think Scott Hansen might be there so it’d be nice to try to get in with him.”

“Scott Hansen?” Yancy raises an eyebrow at the name. “What, is he some fashion dude?”

He’s not big into fashion, he knows this, and his knowledge of such could be called woeful at best. Still he does know _some_ names. He recognizes—and can remember—Calvin Klein, obviously. It probably helps that the underwear Raleigh bought him a few months back were all made by them, though. Kid’d said they were higher quality than normal generic shit—his words, not Yancy’s—and, so far, they’ve held up amazingly. Are actually really comfortable. And, jesus, he’s getting on a tangent in his own brain.

“Either way, I’m going to assume,” he rips off a piece of the tortilla wrapped around his burrito, chewing on it thoughtfully, “that he’s some kind of big name dude?”

It hits him, then, like someone had flipped a light switch on in his brain.

“Wait, please tell me he’s not—he _can’t_ be related to Max, right? I mean,” Yancy swallows the bit of tortilla, putting his food back down in its wrapper, “that’d just be way too fucking...fuck, I don’t even know, actually.”

And Raleigh was about to answer the first of Yancy’s questions when the second one completely blindsides him.

“Max. That little shit for brains. He’s a Hansen.”

Well what in the fuck. Could that actually be true? Had Raleigh never paid attention to that before? How long had he known Max-- the surly with him but apparently kind _redhead aussie with a grudge against the fashion industry_.

“Shiiiit. Maybe? That’d be way too much of a coincidence, right? That doesn’t happen in real life.”

Only this _was_ their real life.

“Yancy, Scott Hansen is the head designer for _Jaeger_. Your winter _coat_ is Jaeger. Remember how I brought it back for you from New York last year? This is a big deal!”

A beat.

“Damn. Maybe we _should_ fuck it out.” As if that would somehow help his career.

Yancy doesn't know what he says in response. Probably something stupid. All he knows for certain is that lines of causality and time all seem to blur and stretch and bend in his mind because okay he loves that coat. It's fucking comfy. And maybe he treasures it that much more because Raleigh had gotten it for him. And that coat is apparently Jaeger. Jaeger which is run by Scott Hansen. Scott Hansen who, if Raleigh's face is anything to go by, very well _could_ be related to Max.

The same Max that Yancy has been encouraging his brother to sleep with for _weeks_.

He can hear the kid responding to whatever he might’ve said, the words that his mouth formed while his brain is on vacation. His brother’s answer flows over him, breaking against his eardrums like water sluicing around a jagged rock.

He feels dirty.

The way Raleigh had agreed with his encouragement, the undercurrent that Yancy could feel more than hear in the thought-given-voice...how the kid was joking, yes, but the truth behind the words, the _bitterness_ … He can’t be here right now. Can’t be subjected to that worried and cautious but caring smile his brother is sending his way—the same one that has always made Yancy’s spine turn to jello—or the soft, questioning tone rolling off that tongue. That tongue now darting out, pink and soft, to moisten lips, tempting, so tempting that Yancy just wants to lean forward and—

Yancy jerks in his seat, realizes his mouth is moving, that he’s apparently chewing his food. His burrito. The same burrito he and Raleigh were making ridiculous jokes about earlier. It tastes like ash in his mouth, and he swallows, wincing slightly; he must’ve taken too big a bite. Words bounce around the back of his skull like a headache waiting to happen, some ( _stop trying to hook him up with your friends, you’re only hurting yourself_ ) forcing their way to the front, black and pixelated against a white backdrop.

(“ _Maybe we_ should _fuck it out…_ ”)

He feels _dirty_.

Yancy drops his food to his back in its wrapper, looking down and pushing away from the table. He’s sure he probably looks like he’s having a fucking mood swing—he has no fucking clue what he’s been saying to his brother for the past five minutes, or what the kid has been saying back for that matter—but he...he can’t. He thought he could do this.

He really did.

Raleigh was supposed to laugh at the suggestion of Max being related to these fashion giants, whoever they are. Was supposed to dismiss it, leaving Max on Yancy’s list of ‘People For Rals’ without any complications. Without any extra fucking incentives. Because, sure, he’s not a model, but Yancy is well aware of what desperate people do to get ahead. And he _knows_ his brother, _knows_ the kid is worth so much more than _that_.

Forget dirty, he feels fucking sick.

(Not that he doesn’t constantly feel like that anyway)

“I, uh, I-I’m sorry, kiddo, but I think I need some air,” he mutters, grabbing his tray and balling his food in its foil wrapper. “Go ahead and finish up. I’ll be out by the car.”

He turns away and tosses his trash before practically sprinting out the door and into the warming air. Sucks in a breath once he’s propped himself against the his driver’s side door. Yancy’s not sure Raleigh is watching him from inside, but he can practically feel eyes on him through the tinted windows just the same. Doesn’t really fucking care if someone’s watching him, though.

He fishes his phone from his pocket, sinking down against the sun-warmed metal at his back until he’s on his haunches in the parking lot. Lays his head in his hands as revulsion crawls up his throat, forcing himself to taking a few steadying breaths to get his heartbeat out of his ears and his stomach back down where it belongs. When he’s about ninety percent certain he’s not going to lose his lunch—literally—he focuses on his phone and manages to tap out an email to his new friend. _God_ , but he needs...something. Someone to talk to, probably.

 

_[[ To: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

_From: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

**_Fuck_ ** _._

_You were right. Trying to get him to sleep with my friend was a horrible idea._

_I just..._

_Fuck.]]_

 

Just that. He doesn’t think he has it in him to write anything else more detailed. Not right now, at least. Instead, he pulls up his text messages as the little bar at the top of his phone still reads ‘ _Sending..._ ’ and punches out a text to his brother with jerking motions.

_Don’t sleep with Max. Please. Not like that._

Maybe Yancy’s laying himself more bare than he ever has, but he...he can’t. He can’t not say it. He _has_ to say it. Even if he’s too much of a coward to say it to Raleigh’s face.

A reply didn’t come for a few long, torturous minutes. Nor did Raleigh appear outside. His head was practically spinning from hurricane Yancy and all the erratic shit he’d done that day. Something was definitely wrong with his brother and even though he knew what the was a big fucking zero amount of anything he could do about it.

That was the worst. Feeling useless. Raleigh hated feeling useless.

He takes one last bite of his food and wraps the rest up, sliding the tinfoiled burrito into the jacket of his pocket. He’s just about to stand when his phone goes off with two simultaneous alerts and he actually laughs when he sees who they’re from.

Go fucking figure.

He’ll email his friend in a moment. Yancy’s text has to come first. Even though it’s a little weird, he’ll chalk it up to his brother having a fucking strange day..week..year.

Raleigh looks at his phone, then out the window to his brother’s car and back.

_Okay_

He types and sends, slipping his phone back in his pocket and making for the car. He takes a breath to steel himself and says “Get a grip, Rals. Everything is fine.” Because maybe, if he can convince himself, it might actually work out. Right now he needs a cold shower and anything to take him mind off this. And beer. And a fucking joint or something because _god damn_.

One day at the time. Everything is gonna be just fine.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup. we totally doubled the length of the story with this chapter. 
> 
> Also, the next chapter is gonna involve some timeskipping. To move this train onward. Because ooooh do we have plans. Such plans do we have. Hehehehe...


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at us go we're on a roll. 
> 
> Warning: recreational drug use and potential dubcon triggers lie herein.

_[[To: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

_From: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

**_re:Fuck._ **

_I told you it was going to end in tears. What happened?_

_Had a pretty fucking rotten day, myself. I think my brother is reaching some kind of critical breakdown stage and there’s literally nothing I can do to help him. I could use the distraction.]]_

 

_[[ To: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

_From: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

**_re:Fuck._ **

_Hey, I’m sorry for taking so long to answer. I know it’s email but...well, you haven’t made me wait a whole day before. And, to be quite honest, I...as much as I wanted to talk about it, I started typing this up at least three times and something always happened to interrupt me. One time it was my brother, and twice it was work. Not in that order. God, I could murder my boss. And my coworkers. Well, one in particular. Or maybe three of them._

_Basically, remember how I told you I was trying to hook my brother up with a friend of mine? This friend is also a coworker. And, apparently, his family and my brother are in the same business. Except his family is much further along than my brother is. And my brother, he uh. He made a joke. About sleeping with this friend/coworker/whatever. And, y’know, up until then there hadn’t been any better reason for him to do it except that I was trying to encourage him to be with this guy. Aaaaaand, well, all of a sudden he has this other reason to sleep with the guy. And, hey, I know he was joking, and I know he’d never do something like that, but...well, I felt...dirty. Wrong. For trying to set him up with this guy. Because that’s_ not _who my brother is. He doesn’t need to sleep with someone to get ahead. Hell, I don’t think he would. Ever. Fuck, I_ know _he wouldn’t do it._

 _But still. It was. I guess. Too much? Like, I almost made this happen._ **I** _almost encouraged my brother to sell himself to get ahead._

 _I dunno. It was. Fuck, man, it was a horrible feeling. I just felt like complete shit. And I think I might’ve...scared him? Somehow? Even_ I _know I was acting weird, since I kinda went and, well, y’know, excused myself to freak the fuck out. While we were supposed to be out having a good time together._

_Yeah. Such a class act, that’s me._

_But hey, I’m sorry you had a shitty day too, man. I know it’s probably not the same since, y’know, it was yesterday, but do you want to talk about it?]]_

 

_[[To: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

_From: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

**_re:Fuck._ **

_Hey, no it’s fine. I ended up drowning my sorrows in sweet sweet wine and watching Mean Girls so I’m all good._

_That sounded a lot gayer than I intended._

_Fuck it._

_It’s funny you should say that’s what happened. We really do live in some uncanny valley where our lives are scary similar. My brother has been trying to hook me up with this kid who works with him for ages but the smarmy little gremlin basically hates me and I can’t tell if I should stab him or tie him down and work all the pretty little freckles off his face._

_Again, that sounded way gayer than I intended. I might have been drinking tonight, too. Sue me._

_That’s shitty you feel bad but man, and I mean this in the best way, has anyone told you that you come across a little neurotic sometimes? If your kid brother was joking then he obviously doesn’t feel like you were trying to push him into fucking this guy. I think you’re being too hard on yourself. Maybe just tell him that, for the record, you don’t want him to actually fuck Mr. X. That would make being around him awkward and also your brother sounds like a good kid. People sleep around to get ahead all the time but if he has any integrity (and it’s hard to come by these days lemme tell you) I doubt he’d use the guy’s dick to get into his business. Because lets face it, then he’s trapped in a relationship with that guy and when it goes bad, because shit like that always goes bad, he’s fucked up his job, too. And then no one is happy and everything is pain._

_Let it go, bro. Whoosah._

_For what it’s worth, I think my brother is in love with one of his other colleagues. Like really really in love with him. The kicker? The guy is married with a baby on the way. Talk about scandal. And I’m not sure the guy even knows? We’re all pretty good friends. I like to think if he did he would have pulled me aside to talk about it?_

_My brother, though. I wasn’t kidding about meltdown. It might be the last days of Pompeii, over here. You hear an ash cloud coming you fucking run and get out of the way, okay? He just can’t let this guy go and it’s killing me. Supposed to see him for 4th if I can swing by after work. Maybe I’ll talk to him about it. Ask him to let my brother down easy. Is that meddling? I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m out of wine. I want a cigarette and I don’t even smoke. Everything is pain.]]_

 

_[[ To: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

_From: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

**_re:Fuck._ **

_Huh. No, actually, no one’s ever said that before. Fuck, I really,_ really _hope my bosses aren’t rubbing off on me. **Fuck**. That’d be fucking awful. Then again, I think. More than anything...it’s just...all this shit in my head, piling up about _ him _. About my little brother. I think I have to always analyze everything he says or does around me. And everything I say and do around him because, I mean, can you even imagine what fresh levels of hell my life would become if I accidentally gave myself away? I’m sure you get it. Although I wish I could be less...like that...about it. I dunno. Maybe I should just always make sure to have a beer close at hand when he’s nearby? That way I can...relax. Stop my brain from talking as much._

_Still, I’m sorry. About your brother and the fucked-up whatever he’s got himself involved in. Or hung up on. Or whatever it ends up actually being. Either way, I’m. Really. Really sorry. That sucks, man._

_Yeah I went on a supply run with my brother yesterday. Kinda my way of apologizing for being so weird. Picked up some beer and a few bottles of wine. Stuff he really likes. I let him keep those. (what is it with little brothers and wine?) I’m pretty sure he’s drained them all by now. I kept some beer stashed for myself, though. Since. Well, after today. I kinda needed it. Yeah. Sorry for the. Sentence fragments? And stuff? I may or may not be on bottle. Uh. Five? Maybe?_

_Amazingly I’m not drinking cause of my brother. Though. I probably should? Oh! That’s right! I didn’t tell you. I did talk to him about the guy. I asked him not to sleep with him for y’know. That. And he said sure. Well. Not_ sure _. He said okay. I think. Either way he said yes. To not sleeping with this guy, that is._

 _But either way, the_ real _reason I’m drinking is that I think I might’ve. Kinda. Sorta. Really pissed off a friend at work. A good friend. My boss had me. Uh. Check his work, I guess you could say? I don’t know how science-y you are (is that  word?) so I’m gonna leave it at that.  And it turned out that he’d fucked up somewhere. So he has to scrap like four_ months _of work. Or is it six? I can’t remember. A lot of work though. And then my boss had_ me _tell him. Yeah. Poor kid. He’s been with us for a little while but, like, this project? It was his brainchild. And now he has to start from scratch. I think he might think I betrayed him or something. Which sucks. But whatever. I’ve already got “brother-fucker hopeful” on my list of things to feel bad about. What’s a little backstabbing compared to that?_

_No but seriously I feel fucking shitty about it. I think I might offer to help him rebuild his project. Even though it’s totally not my place. And my boss probably won’t like it. Fuck it whatever._

_You have to work on the fourth? I am. So so so sorry for you, man. That just. Really sucks. Yeah we’re gonna go to this party with a bunch of friends. Probably gonna be pretty cool. My brother, though, he’s apparently not really gonna be able to make it. Which sucks but, y’know. It’s probably for the best. If I got anywhere near as drunk as my friends are probably planning on getting me? Christ, I’d probably just. Confess everything. If he straight-up asked, of course. Probably wouldn’t just blurt it out. I hope. But y’know. Actually, not even I know. All I know is that he won’t be there and I’m both sad and relieved about this. Might actually just forgo drinking anything beyond two beers or something, since someone has to be DD for the few people who actually do like me._

_Bah, enough about me. I’m really sorry. Like you said, a bit neurotic, I guess. Always switching everything to talking about myself. Always apologizing for it. Sorry for that. Sigh. I can’t win, can I? Heh. (Hint: that last apology was on purpose. See? I can be funny!)_

_So, do you have many friends at your job? Or are you like me? The dude that people seem to (with maybe two exceptions) either just tolerate or hate? Nah, I bet the people you work with, like, really like you. Oh god that sounded really dumb. Too many likes too close together in one sentence. I think it’s time to get back to finishing this stupid report for my class. And then sweet, sweet sleepytimes. Fuck, I am a, er, man over 20 and I just said sleepytimes. Yup. Better finish this soon.]]_

 

_[[To: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

_From: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

**_re:Fuck._ **

_Didn’t mean to call you neurotic the other night. Drunk fingers. You’re a good man and it’s good you care about him. It’s also good you’re aware of your actions. Don’t listen to me I’m drunk. We can be drunk together._

_That sucks about your friend at work. Like that really really sucks. I don’t know shit about science past what my brother tells me but he starts talking and I just kinda go blank. Like I see his mouth moving but it’s all Charlie Brown Wah wah wah wah in my head._

_I can tell you after years of this phenomena that he has gorgeous lips but after, like, the rain cycle you’ve lost me._

_Take your friend out for a drink. Many drinks. And light a firework in my honor. I’m so fucking pissed off I’m missing a good party. We spent tons of money on fireworks. If they light them without me there’s gonna be hell to pay._

_Sleepytimes sounds good. Big breaths, dude. You’re gonna be okay. Happy Independance day.]]_

 

Raleigh closed his laptop and settled back into his otherwise empty bed. Life was weird right now. The fourth of July was tomorrow. He had to work and Yancy was going to Tendo’s party and he was going to miss his own fireworks because he had to network for Pentecost. On the upside it would be good for business, on the downside he really wanted to set stuff on fire. But being that Stacker was English he didn’t see the need to let his models off for the night. Not when there was business they could be doing.

His friend had a point, though. It was probably good that both sets of brothers wouldn’t be spending the holiday together as he, too, would inevitably get drunk and most likely make a fool of himself by either latching onto Yancy or onto the next available someone - whomever that happened to be for the evening. Hell, who was he kidding. He’d probably end up doing that at this party, anyway. He always did.

The next morning came soon enough and it was, blissfully, as saturday. Raleigh was up early as usual but forced himself to stay in bed. Stay in his room. Just...seclude himself. He wasn’t avoiding his brother per se, but he was definitely avoiding his brother. He texted for a while with some other models, made vague plans of what to wear and when to show up. Were they getting cars, where they sharing them. Anything to prolong the leaving of his room.

The Weis were getting their own car. Sasha and her husband had theirs. Looked like Raleigh would be riding alone. And that was okay. It’s not like he had to drive himself. A perk, he guessed, as though it were an excuse as to why he was barely paid. Just one of those Fashion Things he was supposed to accept and deal with because that was how the industry worked.

He hated talking about that aspect with Yancy. Trying to explain he was doing fashion week for next to free was like explaining quantum theory to a squirrel. And Raleigh could only say _I’m doing it for exposure_ so many times because any way you looked at it, between the fees and agencies and managers and middle men, 90% of his earnings went to other people.

But it wouldn’t be that way forever, he was sure. It couldn’t be that way. He wouldn’t let it. Pentecost wouldn’t let it. But he was young and needed to just put his head down and fucking deal with it like a professional or he wasn’t going to get anywhere and then he really _would_ be thinking about fucking Max to get ahead.

It’s noon before Raleigh finally surfaces, having finally torn himself away from youtube to wander out to the kitchen in search of food. Nothing too big. He had to look good tonight. Maybe just some coffee and a bowl of cereal.

“Yance, you awake?” He called out as he walked. “Making lunch and that cinnamon toast crunch is callin’ my name.”

It’d be an easy routine. Eat. Bathe. Primp. Roll around in his closet for a while looking for The Jeans That Made His Ass Look Great™ that he’d gotten at the last AllSaints sample sale. Comfortable but tight in all the right ways. Distressed in the way that was trendy with gunmetal hardware. He’d live in them if he could.

“Yaaaancy. Get up!”

Yancy’s swim to consciousness is slow, muddled, like he’s trying to move through toffee on a cold day. The hand that he’s using to rub his face starts tracing senseless patterns over his lips, trying to coax sensation back into the desert-like skin. His tongue darts out to wet them, and it, well, it halfway works. Works well enough. He cracks a single eye open, squinting at his alarm clock as he mumbles, “Yeah, yeah, kiddo, workin’ on i—”

His brain processes the red numbers—the ones that begin with a one and a two and are followed by two other numbers—and the little F in the bottom corner slowly, piecing it together bit by bit...he _knows_ that _means_ something...something _important_ … Fuck, he shouldn’t’ve sent that last email at three in the morning…

Everything connects in a single rush of panic, and any tiredness Yancy might’ve felt vanishes in a heartbeat.

“Fuck!”

The shout is not particularly loud; it sounds distressed and raspy to even his own ears. Yancy flings the covers from his body, paying to heed to the way he stumbles against his doorframe—fucking legs, get with the program—as he rushes out into the hallway and towards the bathroom.

It’s the unusual coolness that has him looking down and, oh, apparently very-tipsy him had decided that sleeping in the buff was a thing. He stands there, staring at his own crotch dumbly for perhaps three seconds, mind stuck between _go back to room and grab underwear_ and _get in the shower you’re fucking **late** you idiot_. Eventually the latter wins out, and he stumbles into the wall this time as he tries to take a step forward, hands  coming out to brace him. The scientist that’s taken up residence at the back of his mind helpfully reminds him that his blood pressure is probably pretty low, since, well, alcohol tends to cause dehydration, and his bladder helpfully agrees that, yes, lots of his blood volume is currently waiting to exit his body. His head makes contact with the same wall when he tries to take another step forward, everything swimming just enough that he loses his balance but good.

He doesn’t cry out exactly, but he knows he makes a sound of some kind, something half-strangled from his dried out vocal cords, and forces himself back up. He’s already so fucking late he’s surprised Geiszler hasn’t called him already to tell him he’s fired. He doesn’t have time for this shit.

“Dude?” Raleigh asks, still standing in the hall as his brother, his naked brother, comes careening from his bedroom towards the bathroom. He looks rough. He looks really rough and Raleigh knows he shouldn’t be checking out his hung over older brother but the opportunity presents itself and who is he to say no. Besides, they’re brothers. They’ve seen each other naked loads of times. They used to bathe together. Just...not when it meant something more than just that.

And it was watching Yancy lurch around that suddenly put it all together. And like the helpful brother he is, he bursts out laughing. “Oh my god you’re late, aren’t you. Are you drunk?”

Something is nagging at Yancy’s thoughts, pulling on them softly but insistently, and he brushes it aside to glare at Raleigh. Raleigh who is standing there in sweatpants and not much else, the definition of the kid’s muscles standing out as his body contracts with laughter. Yancy could count each muscle, could probably name each of them if he was feeling up to it, because his brother is just _that_ perfect. Imagines himself doing just that, listing each one as he runs his tongue over and between them and— 

Oh fuck, this is _not_ the right time or place to be getting a boner.

“‘M not drunk, ass,” his retort is weak, made weaker by the way his voice seems to refuse to work properly, “just gotta piss. And, yeah, I’m la—”

The soft tugging in his mind turns hard, sharp, and Yancy almost collapses to the floor as he leans back against the wall. Goosebumps spring up on his flesh and run over his shoulders when he makes contact with the cold surface. He feels heat sweep over him, though, as embarrassment crawls up his spine. His mind reminds him that he’s still fucking naked, and that Raleigh is _right fucking there_ , and, hey, look at that, he has a full-on hardon because he’s thinking about doing nasty things to his brother but oh yeah he also has to piss _really fucking bad_. He can’t find it in him to care, though, instead giving voice to the thought that has finally tugged its way free.

“It’s the fourth, isn’t it?”

“Uh….” The response is delayed when Raleigh’s laughter subsides enough to open his eyes and- wow. Wow, well. That certainly is a boner right there. He swallows, focus drawn to that instead of the question. His own cock twitches in his jogging bottoms and he considers what else he could be swallowing right now but- oh no. No, no you don’t, Raleigh. Stop right the fuck now.

“Y-yeah,” He forces himself to look away and prays to god Yancy didn’t catch him staring. “What time is Tendo’s thing? I wanna come by if I can and.. I was hoping we could save Gipsy until I’m there for it? If you light our shit off without me I will never forgive you.”

The sound that leaves Yancy’s throat this time is rueful.

“Figures.” He rubs at his eyes, standing up completely, keeping his back against the wall for support. “Remind me to never again drink before a weekday holiday from work. Thought I had work and—”

He cuts himself off, shaking his head, not looking at his brother, though he does laugh at the joking threat—at least, he’s 90% certain it’s a joke. Given his track record this morning, he could be wrong. Given their track record, though, he’s pretty sure it’s a joke.

“Starts at nine, ‘bout a half hour after sunset I think? We aren’t gonna do fireworks until ‘bout eleven, eleven thirty, though, so we can watch NYC and Chicago first.” He drops his hands then, looking over at his brother to grin as best as he can. “Also so we don’t have to compete with the other kiddies in the neighborhood. Like that couple with, like, five kids down the street that Tendo says always starts their show exactly at sunset. But, yeah, no, no worries, we won’t start without you.”

He tries to turn away and take a single step towards the bathroom, following the call of nature, only to have his knee buckle—fuck everything, why is it so hard to get limbs that cooperate?—and his body careen sideways into the wall. His shoulder strikes with a dull, unhappy sound of impact, and he grunts, panting lightly as his hands come up to brace himself.

“Goddamnit, this is why I don’t drink.”

It’s a total lie and they both know it, but he lets himself chuckle at his own lame joke anyway.

And having a laugh at Yancy’s morning clumsiness was always funny.

“You okay?” Raleigh asks, absently stroking himself through his pants now his brother is out of view. “You wanna go back to bed and try again?”

“I’d rather not piss the bed, but thanks,” Yancy continues laughing lightly, resting his head sideways against the wall. It’s won this round. “I just...would you believe me if I said that I have to piss so bad that I literally can’t make it to the bathroom? That there’s a scientific reason for that?”

“I believe you. But if you piss all over the floor I’m not cleaning it up.”

Yancy rolls his eyes, swallowing the dryness back in his throat as well as his pride—and, fuck, who the hell cares about pride? This is _Raleigh_ —and finally works the words out of his throat.

“That was me asking for help, you ass. Because science.”

Right. Because science. Yeah. He’ll just keep telling himself that.

“Yancy…”

Raleigh doesn’t know whether or laugh some more or run or go and find a bottle or something. Here he was like an asshole hard in his pants and- This was just fucking ridiculous.

“I’m not carrying you to the bathroom.”

Was there an edge of panic there? Maybe. Under the hilarity and also _what the fuck was actually happening._

“Hold up.” He says and glances around. There’s a beer bottle still on the kitchen counter from Yancy’s little party of one last night and Raleigh goes and grabs it before bringing it over.

“I can’t believe this is actually happening. I’m never letting you live this down.”

His brother has _got_ to be joking. How is this even his life right now? Still, it’s better than the alternative, he supposes. He accepts the bottle, looks down, and a thought occurs to him.

“As grateful as I am for your help, kiddo, you do realize, I hope, that this isn’t gonna—actually, y’know what, nevermind, thanks.” The need to relieve himself wins out over the need to explain why this is actually only slightly helpful. He _is_ grateful, both that his brother is doing more than just laughing at him and that he’d managed to fall against the wall turned away, because christ this is embarrassing enough already.

Once he’s done, he sags against the wall, keeping a tight grip on the bottle. His whole body feels warm because, yeah, this is, in fact, his life. And it’s his own fucking fault for not taking advantage of all those water bottles he’d set up in the kitchen—

“Hey, uh, kiddo?” Yancy looks over his shoulder, takes in the fact that Raleigh is still there, still shirtless—hey, is his brother sporting morning wood?—and , _fuck_ , there goes his boner again, fucking thing needs to _not_. “There should be some water bottles on the counter. I uh,” he scratches his head, ducking it between his shoulders slightly, “I might’ve forgotten to, y’know drink them. Like a bad drunk. Yeah. Can you bring me one?”

It’s a lame-ass excuse to get his brother away and he knows it: the bathroom is closer, and the kid could just as easily grab him a glass from there. But that would risk his brother seeing his front and, well...yeah. That would be bad. As soon as the kid’s back in the kitchen, he plans to make a break for it, dispose of the evidence of his...bad planning, and shower. He feels disgusting, and the panic from earlier has left him feeling hollowed out; he _needs_ a shower, to just relax under the scalding spray.

If, of course, his brother buys his bullshit. And, knowing Raleigh...well...there’s a very real chance things are about to get exceptionally awkward.

“Um,” Raleigh answers, having taken to lingering towards the kitchen because what kind of sick weirdo watches their family piss in a bottle. “Yeah, sure. Go get your shit together. I’ll stick it in the bathroom, okay?”

Yeah. Awkward was a hell of a word for it. But a bottle of water. Yeah. He can manage that. Say nothing of his last eyeful as his brother escapes to the bathroom.

The first thing Yancy does when he gets to the bathroom is dump out the bottle and flush its contents away, because yeah, ew, no thanks to carrying that around any longer than he has to. The second is to gulp down two glasses of water from his cup by the sink, the cool liquid feeling like heaven as it slides down his throat. The last is to turn the shower as hot as it’ll go and step under the spray, relaxing and letting it wake him up. He looks down at where his dick is still sticking straight out from his body despite all his earlier embarrassment, and sighs softly as he wraps a hand around himself. Fuck it all, if it’s not gonna behave, then he’s gonna just have to give it what it wants.

With one arm propped against the wall and the other on himself, Yancy works himself at a furious pace, stepping out from under the spray when it becomes distracting so that he’s leaning against the wall on the far side of the shower. The water is still striking him about his calves, but that doesn’t distract from the images of his brother that flash through his mind, hard and aching for _him_ , going to his knees for _him_ , swallowing him whole—

Yancy comes with a soft cry that he muffles behind bitten lips, painting the tiled wall and shower curtain—

The shower curtain, he realizes with a kind of low horror, that, in his tired state, he had apparently failed to close all the way on this side. And through which he can now see a water bottle sitting on the sink that hadn’t been there before.

 _Fuck_. Had he said Raleigh’s name at any point? Had he...had he done _anything_ that might’ve given him away? A small part of him quietly takes joy at the possibility that his brother might’ve seen him, while the rest of him crushes that small part to dust. Yet another part reasons that nothing says the kid saw anything. Nothing at all. It’s just a slightly less-than-closed shower curtain and a water bottle. It doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t _mean_ anything.

He’ll go with that.

And it’s best he does because Raleigh definitely walked in on his brother jacking off and definitely got an eyeful of that before ditching the water bottle and running the fuck away.

Not because he was embarrassed, but because if he didn’t run he might inexplicably find himself in the shower behind him. Naked. Rubbing his cock between his brother’s ass cheeks and reaching around to take over the job.

Raleigh whines aloud as he presses himself against the wall in the kitchen. This wasn’t going well. Today wasn’t going well at all.

“Fuck,” He swears, hanging his head for a moment. _Enough is enough_ , he thinks. _I’m getting laid tonight._

He needs the distraction.

Breakfast goes abandoned. Raleigh retreats to his room until his brother finishes up and goes and he doesn’t come out until he hears the car pull out of the driveway. He sighs and finally leaves, showers and, yeah he can admit, he jerks off in there, too. The sight of Yancy standing right where he’s standing, cock hard and heavy in his hand burning behind his eyes.

When he comes, it’s Yancy’s name on his lips. And it’s okay. He’s home alone. He lets himself.

It takes him an hour to find his jeans. Another to find his leather combat boots. He doesn’t know why it’s always so hard to find something in his room, he isn’t particularly disorganized, but today was angling against him at all costs it seems.

Satisfied he’s decently clothed and sufficiently rocking the “I’m cool but not trying to be cool” slouchy sweater/tight jeans combo he spends entirely too long in front of the mirror. Exfoliate. Moisturize. Pluck. Groom. Shave. Do his hair.

If someone had told him being a model was this much effort when he was thinking about getting involved he would have run.

But here he is. Stick in a x10 magnification mirror plucking his fucking eyebrows. Jesus.

After that...well he still had time. The internet calls him name. It’s easy to waste time on there. Better than the homework glaring accusingly at him from his desk.

 

_[[ To: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

_From: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

**_re:Fuck._ **

_I’m getting laid tonight. I encourage you to do the same. You’ll feel better. ]]_

 

He isn’t sure why he feels the need to share, but he’s sent it before he can think twice.

The car comes for him at half past six. It’s by the grace of god that he gets his cereal but it’s a small silver lining in what today has been so far.

 _Not gonna make it_ , he texts Yancy. _Car is here. I’ll try to sneak out early._

As it turns out, the party is actually a really fucking nice one in the heart of DC in a private member’s club that’s been locked down for the function. He’s escorted in and his coat checked, the hum of house music already thrumming through him.

The Hospital is a three floor member’s club, all comfortable, mismatched sofas and marble floors arranged in a carefully trendy but elegant composition of chesterfield couches and Persian rugs. Raleigh thinks it’s the kind of place hipsters have when they grow up and have way too much money. There are photo walls and press in the entry hall and goody bags on the way out.

“Raleigh!”

He hears his name called and turns as he enters the first floor. There are already about a hundred people lounging and drinking and posing.

“Mako, oh thank god.” He answers, thinking he was going to have to do this alone. She approaches, taking two cocktails off a passing tray and hands him one.

“Were you scared?” She asks, teasing.

“Nope.” Sip. “Maybe a little. You look great.”

“Thank you,” She answers, amused as ever. Mako is a rep for the agency and for her father so it’s natural that she would be here, dressed _en pointe_ as usual in a sculpted black dress and very expensive looking shoes. Alexander McQueen, Raleigh realizes passively. That collection isn’t even out, yet.

She isn’t the kind of person Raleigh thought he’d ever be friends with but they’d gotten over a few initial misunderstandings when he was signed and she had gone from scary warrior woman to best friend warrior woman in no time at all. They were usually attached at the hip at these kinds of function and it wasn’t any surprise they were rumored sweethearts.

Something they occasionally used to their advantage. But anyone who knew Raleigh knew he was sitting on the scale somewhere between raging and three dollar bill. Not that it mattered. They were a great friendship and a strong alliance. And in a business like this you needed good friends.

“Cara is here.” He says over the rim of her glass, perfect red lips not leaving so much as a smudge.

“Really? From London?”

“Mmhm. You should say hello.”

“Can’t I play with you all night?”

“I know you would prefer. But it isn’t me you are here to impress.”

She has a point. He huffs a sigh and blows a piece of hair from in front of his face. Mako laughs and raises an eyebrow.

“You are wearing your _fuck me_ jeans,” She notes.

“And? You gonna fuck me?”

“Oh,” She laughs again. “You would be so lucky.”

Really, in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t a bad party. The wall to wall windows looking out over the city give a perfect view to the various firework shows, the drink is free, and the company isn’t terrible. Raleigh is personable and popular and it turns out he knows more than a handful of people. He charms his way into three runway shows and a handful of photoshoots over the course of the evening, getting drunker and drunker as the night goes on. At some point he finds himself just on the other side of wasted and standing on the roof with the smokers, leaning against the railing in some vain attempt to clear his head. It was nearly midnight then and he’d been drinking solidly for several hours.

 _Don’t get drunk at a work party_ , he thinks. That’s Pentecost’s rule. _Don’t let them catch you drunk._

Shit. He takes another sip of his water.

“You alright, mate?” A voice asks him. Raleigh sees the shoes first. Boots similar to his attached to nice legs and an even nicer torso. Broad but sleek under it’s thin v neck and leather jacket. He looks up more, vision swimming.

“I’m drunk.”

Well. There goes that secret.

“I can see that. Not gonna vom all over the place, are you?”

English? Raleigh wonders? No.. weirder. Australian. With messy auburn hair and freckles and bright, focused eyes. Jesus.

“Hansen..?” He asks, knowing the guy’s face. “I’ve met you.”

“Chuck.” The sorta stranger replies. “In New York, yeah.”

“You’re the face of Jaeger.”

Again, the stranger nods. “You’re a clever one, aren’t you.”

“Shut up, I’m-”

“Wasted. I can see that. Drink your water before you try to dance on a tabletop or something.”

“I wouldn’t,” Raleigh protests. “The music isn’t good enough.”

Chuck laughs and relaxes a little, running a hand through his hair and leaning back with his forearms resting on the railing. He pulls out a cigarette and perches it between his lips before offering the full pack of Lucky Sevens.

Raleigh doesn’t smoke. After his mom.. no. He disagrees with it. But he’s drunk and he takes it anyway. Chuck lights it with a gold zippo and flicks the metal case shut before it and the pack disappear back inside his jacket pocket.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

A moment of silence passes between them, nothing but smoke and sharp inhales. Ash fluttering to the concrete floor.

“My uncle is lookin’ for you.” Chuck says, glancing over.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. You gonna walk for us?”

“I was hoping to..”

“Then let me give you a piece of advice. Don’t get trashed at a party before the real fun begins.”

The smile on Chuck’s face is positively wolfish.

“All the boring cunts fuck off about this time. It’s gonna get good now.”

“Yeah?” Raleigh asks, edging closer. He’s feeling reckless and the dimples Chuck has on him are calling his name.

“Yeah. Fancy seeing for yourself?”

“Fuck yeah.”

They drop their cigarettes and Chuck guides Raleigh back inside, muscling through the throng of people that had managed to amass to well over five or six hundred. In a club like this the toilets were all singles, two male, three female on every floor. And if Raleigh didn’t have an idea of where this was going before he sure did now, eagerly fumbling his way behind the other man only to be pushed into a bathroom with Chuck pressing against him. The door locks behind them with a sharp click.

“No one knows, yeah? This is between you and me.”

“No one,” Raleigh promises, hands already pushing up under the other’s shirt and when Chuck kisses him it’s like he’s stealing his breath. Crushing and brutal but in all the right ways. It’s like an attack, but Raleigh is a willing victim as he’s pushed to his knees, pawing to unbuckle Chuck’s belt and fly and tug his jeans down. He’s starving for this. Desperate, almost. He needs this.

Not time is wasted. No tenderness afforded. It’s a down and dirty blow job and half the time he can’t breathe for Chuck’s cock choking him. His eyes sting but he doesn’t pull back. Doesn’t give up and he tells himself that this is what he’s wanted all along. Not Yancy. Not sweet, clumsy, dopey Yancy who is so beautiful it makes Raleigh sick sometimes. Not his brother for whom he’s been lusting for years. Not him. That’s not what he wants. He wants hard muscle and fingers curled so tight in his hair that it hurts. He wants a fuck you attitude to fuck his throat until he can’t speak and he’s _grateful_ for it. This is more his speed. This is better. This is so much better.

Chuck doesn’t warn him when he comes, just holds him by the hair and growls and pants as he shoots off in Raleigh’s mouth. He swallows. What else can he do but there’s more than he thought and coughs, scrambling back to heave for some air.

“Fuck,” Chuck swears, releasing the hold he’s had in Raleigh’s hair and smiling. Something bright and genuine and he’s beautiful. Raleigh coughs again and clears his throat. Wipes pearls from his lips and tears from his eyes and offers a watery smile back.

“You’re good.” Chuck says, pawing for the paper towels to clean and tuck himself away before offering a hand to help the other up.

“So’re you,” Raleigh manages, voice hoarse, head swimming.

“Come here, beautiful.”

And this time the kiss is so much sweeter. There’s a tenderness to it that Raleigh hadn’t expected. Wouldn’t have expected from a guy like Chuck. But it was there and it was nice and it made him feel, well, beautiful.

They kiss for a minute more, hands exploring and grabbing handfuls of each other’s asses before being interrupted by a loud banging on the door, rough australian accent penetrating the thick wood.

“Chuck if you’re takin’ drugs in there I swear t’god I’ll skin you!”

Chuck rolls his eyes and kisses Raleigh one last time. “Only the good drugs,” He says quietly and looks over Raleigh with a smirk.

“Best get back. Looks like someone has noticed. Another tip? Don’t go to parties with your family. They ruin everything.”

Raleigh nods and huffs a quiet laugh, signaling that he’s going to stay and use the sink. Chuck nods and adjusts himself before sliding out and closing the door behind him.

“Alright, old man, I’m here. You miss me that bady?”

Raleigh clutches the sink and stares at himself for a long minute. He’s hard as hell, his hair is all kinds of fucked up and there’s jizz on his sweater. Great. He peels out of it and tries to clean it off but mostly just succeedes in making it wet. _That’ll do_ , he thinks, ignoring the way his hands are shaking. Ignoring the way his knees ache.

This is what he wants, right? It’s better than the alternative.

He stumbles back into the party a few minutes later and finds a couch to flop down on. A man approaches with a tray of drinks in thin glass test tubes. Raleigh assumes he’s a waiter. He assumes he's serving a fancy cocktail. He’s handsome, Raleigh thinks. Handsome and probably has a huge cock. He could stand to get fucked tonight.

He doesn’t realize how obvious his erection is in these jeans. He doesn’t rightly care.

“This is Everclear.” The guy says slowly. Pointedly. As if that was something special. “Takes twenty minutes to come up but after that you’re golden. First drink is free, twenty bucks each after.

“Sure, okay.”

That doesn’t make sense But Raleigh isn’t exactly listening. He takes a container and kicks it back, coughing at something bitter and grainy in the bottom that cuts at his throat.

And after that the night is something of a blur. It’s all faces and music and he sees the guy a few more times. Drinks his cocktail a few more times. He sees a lot of people. Touches a lot of people. He vaguely remembers chain smoking with someone on the roof for what feels like days and seconds all together, locked in a deep and engaging conversation about how beautiful nature is and why what they do is so absolutely vital. That they love what they do and they couldn’t possibly do anything else on earth. “I like your style,” The stranger says. Rugged and handsome with an accent. “Aussie,” He says when asked. “You should come and walk for me. Been on my radar for a while.”

“God yes, please! It would be an honor.”

It’s long gotten cold out but it doesn’t matter because he feels amazing. Warm. Like he’s floating. Everything is beautiful and nothing is pain and he _dances_. The DJ has put on something good and slow and beautiful and he dances for ages before reclining back into the velvet sofa. Mako finds him and he kisses her deep and long and tells her how much he loves her and she laughs. Asks him if he’s okay and he’s never been more okay in his entire life. She and the rest of the agency go home and leave him to his own devices.

He’s back in the bathroom twice more. He doesn’t remember with whom, exactly. But he remembers condoms and hot, spiking pleasure pain. He remembers slurring his brother’s name and coming like he’s never experienced before and then suddenly being back out in the cool, fresh air. At some point he realizes he’s lost his sweater. At another point he convinces a girl to trade shirts with him because his is _really_ soft and she seems like she needs cheering up. Her shirt is even softer than his but she seems happy with the trade. They talk for a good long while, too.

Her boyfriend had just left her and they discuss the nature of love and all it’s wonderful, terrible power. And then it hits him. He is in love. He is actually in love. He talks about it for a long time with the girl who’s shirt he was wearing. She’s lovely. Lily, her name is. He looks ridiculous in her shirt but they both laugh about it and she complains that he’s gay. They spend another several minutes-hours-days discussing sexuality and the sliding scale vs you are or aren’t.

“Room for one more?”

They look up and Raleigh smiles, another glass from his friend the waiter in hand.

“Chuck. You came back.”

“Never left, love, budge over.”

Chuck looks worried but Raleigh doesn’t think about it. He just reclines and complains about being too hot and that he wants to take his pants off. The conversation continues for a long time, still about love and sex and gender. Chuck is active but stays quiet for the most part. It’s clear he isn’t in the same place as Raleigh and and Lily. Drunk, sure, pleasantly so, but nowhere near whatever it is that has Raleigh so blissed out.

They continue drinking. Smoking. Pondering life. Chuck is fine but Raleigh is starting to wobble and disappears. He finds him half an hour later curled up on a velvet sofa in the back.

“Ray?”

“Yancy..” He murmurs. “I need..ngh. Chuck have you felt this sofa?”

Chuck sits down slowly, brows pinched. “Who’s Yancy?”

The blonde looks guilty. “I’m trying to.. have you ever been in love, Chuck? Fuck, man I’m sorry. I’m not tryin’-”

“No. Hey. It’s..” Any opinions Chuck has he keeps to himself. Raleigh is clearly fucked up. All ragdoll on the couch in Lily Cole’s now hilariously stretched Dior.

“I think you’re done for the night.” Chuck says gently. “Give us your phone.”

“I need to talk to Yancy.” He says, head lolling back against the couch.

“Phone, Ray.”

“Pocket, Chuck.”

Chuck snorts and frisks him for his phone, pulling it out and forcing Raleigh’s thumb on the device to unlock it so he can dig through his contacts for anyone named Yancy. What a name.

“Chuck gimmie my-”

“Shhh, love. I’m gonna get you some water, okay? Yancy is on his way.”

“Okay..” He nods, nestling back on the couch and rolling on his belly to press his face into the soft fibers.

This isn’t Chuck’s job. This isn’t his job at _all_. And rightfully he should be angry about all this but the guy gave some great head so he guesses he could help him out. Idiot was high as a kite and all. He grabs a glass of water from the bar, bringing it back and forcing Raleigh up. Supervises him while he drinks it. It’s only after that he smiles and steps out onto the roof. Lights a cigarette and waits.

“C’mon, c’mooon.”

Yancy, for his part, has spent the day learning that his boss doesn’t care about things like “holidays” or “spending time with friends and family”. For all that Dr. Geiszler can be a kinda okay guy, he can be just as much of an asshole the rest of the time. Yancy’d finished up in the shower, gone to his room to get dressed and woken up his computer in the process, only to find a strongly-worded email ‘suggesting’ that there were a few things Yancy needed to take care of in the lab today. Thinking about it, it makes a kind of sense, since the cells in their incubators don’t just decide to...stop living just because the government shut down for the day. So, sure, as resident tech, Yancy had a few things he needed to do. But he didn’t want to just run off after, well, all the weirdness of the morning, so he’d grabbed his keys and headed for his brother’s room.

Raleigh’s door had been shut. Which, yeah, okay, Yancy could respect that. Understand it, even. He’d debated knocking, but had eventually let out a soft sigh and instead headed out to his car. Driven away with maybe only two or three backward glances.

He’d messaged Tendo back and forth a few times, just to be sure of the time, and had finished up his work with a few hours to spare. Well, more like five. He’d checked his email, seen the new one from his friend, and had smiled wryly at the short and straightforward message.

 

_[[ To: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

_From: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

**_re:Fuck._ **

_Ha. Let me know how that goes. I think the odds of me getting laid tonight are. Er. Is there a way to have negative odds? I’m...Well, remember how I told you my brother is model-gorgeous? Or something like that. Anyway, I’m_ nothing _like that. I couldn’t pick up a guy even if I wanted to (and even then it’d be a really bad idea because I’d spend the whole time wishing it was him. At least, that’s what evidence tell me). Either way, I hope you feel better. I’ll probably be left with my right hand, but that’s alright. Like I said._

_Although, please stay safe, man. I read somewhere that lots of people like to do fucked-up shit on holidays like this ‘cause they think no one will notice amidst all the chaos. Dunno how true that is, but...my brother is going to a work party (did I tell you that already?) and the only reason I’m not freaking out is because I know he can take care of himself. That and he’s supposed to come to our friends’ party after if he can._

_Okay, maybe I’m freaking out a little anyway. It’s a big brother thing. Don’t judge me._

Anyway _, like I said, have fun, and be safe. ]]_

 

Yancy had puttered in the lab for another hour or so, looking up papers, writing up plans in his notebook to share with Vic later.

The kid’d shut him out ever since Wednesday, a day after Yancy had handed in his results to Geiszler. It hadn’t taken the genius intellect Vic clearly possessed to make the connection between the experiments Yancy had run and Geiszler telling him to start over. And, okay, yeah, Yancy felt kinda bad for him. And kinda responsible in a way. So he drafted up a few plans for how he could help Vic get his project back on track in a few weeks instead of a few months. The planning process was soothing: numbers, making sure everything fit together, these were things Yancy could do. Especially to help a friend.

And, okay, maybe the kid’s enthusiasm reminded him of Raleigh a little bit. But that was only a very, _very_ small factor.

 _Very_ small.

His phone had buzzed with a new text, his brother’s name flashing on the screen. Something in Yancy had deflated slightly at the sight of those words, but he’d swallowed back the _but you promised_ that he wanted to childishly type back. Raleigh’s party was for work. If that meant he had to miss their party, well...so be it.

He’d packed up, then, wanting to not be here with nothing but the deep thrumming of the building’s HVAC system and the buzzing of the electrical equipment to keep him company. He’d texted Tendo again on his way out to the car, and gotten back an okay for him to come over early. He’d driven back to his own place first, though, and had grabbed the bags of fireworks by the door. After a quick pause, though, he’d pulled out the Gipsy Danger monster that Raleigh’d picked out and left it on the coffee table while lugging the rest out to his car.

“Becket Boy, good to see you!” Tendo had greeted him when he’d showed up at his friend’s house. He’d cast a pointed look down at the bags at Yancy’s side. “I see someone brought the heavy artillery, then?”

“Nah, not quite. People were too fast for us this year. They were all out of the good stuff by the time we got there.” Yancy had shrugged, the lie dripping from between his teeth almost too easily. “Sorry, man.”

He’d been met with a raised eyebrow and a small smirk. Eventually, though, Tendo had ushered him inside. Alison was lounging on the sofa, one hand over her swollen belly, some TV show that looked overly dramatic playing out before her.

“Whatever’s in the oven is burning,” she’d shouted without looking away, and Yancy had heard Tendo sniff the air at the same time as him, both of them furrowing their eyebrows in confusion.

“Better go check, just to be sure. Pregnant women and enhanced sense and all that,” Tendo had whispered before saying more loudly, “Will do. Thanks, dear.”

“Don’t ‘dear’ me,” Alison had fired back, and Yancy could hear the smile in her voice without looking, “it makes me feel like we’re about to be grandparents, not parents.”

“Whatever you say, _sugarlumps_.”

“Don’t you dare start this shit with me, _cuddlenugget_ , I will eat you alive to provide for our child if I have to.”

The all-out verbal war that had ensued had lasted a good hour, and had Yancy laughing hard enough that he was sure he was going to suffocate several times. Both of his friends _hated_ pet names, and both loved torturing one another by coming up with the most ridiculous ones possible. Somehow, through all of that, he’d managed to help them get their place set up for the party, helped Tendo cook a few things—or, more to the point, had cooked a few things for Tendo while he and Alison had still been having it out—and finally separated the two of them so they could _stop making him laugh_.

He’d sat down and watched TV with Alison, then, at Tendo’s insistence, and learned that she was watching some show about...vampires? Maybe? He wasn’t quite sure.

“It’s just trash, Yancy,” she’d laughed as she’d explained. “A guilty pleasure for me to indulge because heaven’s know when I’ll next get free time after, well,” she’d gestured down at herself and that had settled that. After a few minutes more of Yancy zoning out while staring at the screen, she’d tapped his shoulder, expression light.

“So when’s Raleigh getting here?”

A sigh.

“He’s not, actually.” Yancy pulled out his phone, pulling up the text as if it was necessary evidence. “Texted me earlier today to tell me that his work thing is probably gonna run all night, so he can’t make it. Sorry.”

Alison had sniffed and raised her eyebrows before turning back to her show.

“Well, that sucks. his loss, though.”

“Oh please, as if you and Tendo didn’t want to get him drunk again.”

A small smile crept over her features, and Yancy could’ve sworn that her eyes were glittering in the half-light from the television.

“I can neither confirm nor deny, but I will say that your little brother at least knows how to have fun. Unlike _some people_.”

“ _Alison_ —”

“ _Yancy_ , if I’m not allowed to drink and have a fucking fantastic time at my own party, then _someone_ has to do it for me.”

The soft but insistent elbowing in his side had been unnecessary.

“So ask Vic.”

“Vic’s not legal.”

“Neither was Raleigh when you guys first got him shitfaced.”

“But Raleigh had you.”

“And Vic has _his_ brother.”

Alison had looked at him for a moment at that, blinking.

“Vic has a brother?”

“Vic has a _twin_.”

That had earned him an eye roll. An eye roll almost identical to Tendo’s. It almost made Yancy gag how perfectly matched the two of them were sometimes.

“So his brother’s not legal, either. _And_ isn’t his legal guardian.”

“No, but they _are_ emancipated minors. Or, were. Whatever.”

At the questioning eyebrow he’d gotten from that, Yancy had shrugged his shoulders. “If you wanna know more, ask them when they get here. They’re pretty open about it, but it’s not really my place to tell, y’know? Either way, Gunnar—that’s Vic’s brother—will probably keep Vic from having too much fun anyway. At least,” Yancy’d had to chuckle slightly as he remembered the conversation he and the undergrad’d had when they’d first met, “if the way he describes his brother is anything to go by.”

Which was to say, Vic had described Gunnar as being almost exactly like Yancy. Except that he was into fine art—sculpture, apparently—instead of science.

They hadn’t gotten to continue their conversation beyond that, because people had started arriving. Yancy had known almost everyone, though there were a few plus-ones he didn’t. Caitlin had scowled at him when she’d spotted him and had in general avoided him. Which was normal. Her boyfriend, a tall man named Sergio, had seemed friendly enough, though they hadn’t really said anything to one another beyond the normal pleasantries.

Yuna showed up just after them, serious as ever and dragging another girl behind her.The other girl, apparently named So-Yi, who, as it turned out, was Yuna’s girlfriend. She’d introduced herself with a wide smile and a hug that Yancy could’ve sworn made his ribs creak in protest. Yuna had rolled her eyes before pulling her away, telling Yancy she had some lab business to discuss with him. Again, normal.

Vic and Gunnar had arrived at about quarter after nine. There had been a moment when Yancy hadn’t been sure which of them was which, but then he’d noticed the streak of bright, fire-engine red buried on the left side of one’s hair. Gunnar, then, since Vic didn’t have anything like that. Not that he knew of, at any rate.

Also, Gunnar had been glaring at him, which helped. Protective brother, check.

“Heeeey guys,” Yancy had tried to go for nonchalant, “good to see you.”

“Okay then, uh, Vic? D’you mind if we, uh, talk for a minute?”

Gunnar had stepped in front of his brother, as if shielding him, a gesture so familiar that it almost made Yancy _ache_ , wishing Raleigh were there. A hand on Gunnar’s should made him move, though.

“It’s alright, G. It’s fine.” Vic’s gaze turned back towards Yancy, tone still slightly defensive. “If you want to talk we can do it here, though.”

Yancy had coughed and looked down. Okay, maybe he did kinda deserve that. He reached into his pocket and fished out the schedule he’d drafted at work today—well, the photocopy he’d made of it.

“This is for you,” he’d said simply, handing it over Gunnar’s shoulder—which was easier said than done—to Vic. “I didn’t enjoy doing what I did, and I feel like shit about it. So, maybe I can help you fix it?” When he didn’t get a response, his mouth continued moving, rambling the way he seemed to when he was nervous. “After all, isn’t that what techs do? Fix stuff that isn’t working? Not that you weren’t working, but something went wrong somewhere, clearly, so I just wanted to help you—”

“Yancy,” Vic’s voice has something in it that silences him and makes Gunnar look back at his brother with a look that Yancy could only have described as surprised. “Thanks. It’s fine. This is,” he looked down at the crease-lined paper in his hands, biting his lip, “this is more than enough. Thanks.”

Vic had pulled his brother away after that, presumably to introduce him to everyone else. Gunnar had given Yancy an appraising gesture before they’d both left, and Yancy had found himself with Alison again.

They’d talked for hours, then. Vic and Gunnar had come by at one point, as did Lightcap’s boyfriend—she, herself, remained at a distance, which was probably for the best—Sergio had even offered to get them food. They’d accepted, though Alison had shouted, “And a beer for Yancy!” after the other man. He’d returned with two, one for himself and one for Yancy. Yancy had taken a single sip before handing it off to Vic, prompting Alison to huff at him and Sergio to burst into laughter.

“Man, she is _dead set_ on getting you hammered.”

“Yancy’s never any fun,” Alison had retorted, pouting. “He won’t even give in to the wishes of a pregnant woman.”

“Hey, if you want me to get something for you, that’s fine. But I will not be your fantasy doll to live vicariously through.”

Her pout had only made Sergio laugh harder. Yancy had decided he liked the man.

A few hours later found them setting off fireworks. Vic was being supported by his brother, and Yancy was still nursing his second—now warm—beer. They all ooh’d and aah’d appropriately, though everyone had laughed loudly when one of the firecrackers had made Vic fall on his ass in surprise. Not for the first time that night, Yancy had felt Raleigh’s absence like a wound in his side, like a piece of him was missing. It’d been made all that much sharper when Gunnar had pulled Vic to his feet, quickly and efficiently checking over his giggling brother for injury before wrapping an arm around Vic’s waist to help keep him steady.

Which is why, when, as the party is winding down and he and Tendo are sitting on the couch with Alison again, both of them sipping coffee as Tendo rubs Alison’s feet, he almost jumps when his phone rings in his pocket. It’s Raleigh’s ringtone. He has to scramble free from where Alison’s leaning against his leg—she’d jumped, too, when she’d felt the vibration at her back—to pull the device out, but he doesn’t even check the caller ID, just hits accept and raises it to his ear.

“Rals? What’s up, kiddo?”

“This is Yancy, yeah?”

The voice that answers him is _definitely_ not Raleigh. Yancy’s entire body stiffens, and he stands, phone pressed against his ear so hard it hurts.

“Who the _fuck_ are you and why do you have my brother’s phone?”

Tendo sits up straighter, as does Alison. Yancy waves a hand in their direction, trying to tell them to sit back down, if he needs them they’ll know.

“Look, mate,” the voice on the other end is tired, sounds slightly pissed. Accent, too. Definitely Australian. Something sparks in Yancy’s gut and he cuts the other guy off before he can answer.

“Max? Max I swear to god if that’s you and this is some kind of sick fucking joke—”

“Oi, no, _shut it_ , would you? Max is my brother. Annoying little shit. Not important. My name’s Chuck. Look, Ray is…”

The way the other man—Chuck, apparently—trails off after that makes something leaden fall in Yancy’s stomach.

“Where’s Raleigh?” he asks softly, almost pleading. He can feel his eyes burning as his anger fades completely. “Where’s my brother? What’s happened?”

There’s a pause, then, “Brother, huh?” The surprise in Chuck’s tone makes Yancy’s teeth grind together and the weight in his stomach turn cold. “What, did your parents hate you both or somethin’? But, naw, seriously, Ray’s here. High as a fuckin’ kite. I think he might need help gettin’ home safe.”

“Put him on, please?” Yancy knows it comes out sound like he’s begging. And, really, he is. But, as childish as it sounds, he needs to hear his brother’s voice. Needs to _know_. “Just...let me talk to him?”

"About that," Chuck says, crushing out his cigarette butt and turning to head back. "He's not in a good way if you follow. I can put him in a taxi but he was asking for you. Any chance you're in DC?"

Yancy sighs, running a hand over his face. Tendo and Alison are still both staring at him, but Tendo’s hands have resumed their motions, while Alison’s fingers are tracing over her belly again almost absently. Their way of letting him know that they’re there, they can help at a moment’s notice, but that, as he’d said, they’re carrying on.

“No, no I’m not.” He pauses, considering, then, “Are you sure you can’t—” ( _he’s not in a good way, if you follow_ ) “—I…” Yancy chokes on air for a moment, scenarios running through his head, each worse than the last, “...never mind. I’ll come get him. Not a taxi. Text me the address?”

"Will do. We're at Hospital. Its a member's club. I'll put your name on the door. He's not hurt but I think it's probably best you collect him. Any idea how long?"

Chuck deserves a big gold star for babysitting his competition but he'd have to be a total cunt to ignore someone who obviously isn't going to be able to look after himself.

Yancy mouths the club’s name to Tendo, and, bless the dude’s fucking heart, he has it googled and an address ready within ten seconds. The man is freakishly fast with technology. After some quick mental math, Yancy puts the phone back against his ear.

“About an hour, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes. Is—” he swallows, “—are you good to stay with him that long?”

"Argh..yeah mate no drama. When you get here we'll either be on the top floor or the balcony, yeah?"

“Yeah, alright, thanks. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you soon.”

Yancy hangs up before he can make even more of an idiot of himself, and realizes with a start that at some point  he’d started pacing.

“So, why’d ‘dja need the address of,” Tendo checks his phone screen again, “what is apparently one of the swankiest clubs in all of DC? Yeesh, look at this place, looks like something out of a goddamn magazine.”

Yancy’s not really paying attention to him, though, is instead looking around for his shoes.

“Yancy,” that would be Alison, her voice soft, concerned, “what’s wrong?”

He pauses, pulling one of his shoes on, before he turns back to his friends, second shoe in hand.

“It’s Raleigh.”

He doesn’t say anything else, simply finishes getting ready and leaves. Plugs the address of this place in on his phone as he walks out to the car. The GPS in it is telling him that his guess was right: one hour and thirteen minutes if he leaves now.

Forty minutes and probably just as many speeding tickets later—fucking speed cameras are everywhere now—Yancy pulls up in front of the club. Waves off the man who comes forward to take his keys, and shoves his way through the line of people wanting to get in. When he gives his name, the bouncer at the front lets him in. Huh. So Chuck was apparently good for his word.

The first thing that hits him is how _quiet_ it is inside compared to the outside world. Oh, sure, he can feel bass thrumming through his feet, but it’s clearly from some other room with wilder music. There are places to sit, relax, have a drink and a conversation, as well as places to stand and do the same. The lighting is bright yet...strange. Muted, somehow, less glaring than it should be for how well-lit the place is.

“Top floor or balcony,” Yancy murmurs under his breath, looking around until he spots a set of stairs—tucked in a corner but with chains of lights along the edge of each step—that he makes his way towards. Several people try to stop him, pull him into conversation, hand him a drink or something else, but Yancy waves them all off with a tight smile and a “No, thank you.” He has more important things on his mind.

When he reaches the third floor, Yancy looks around for all of a half second before his body simply...orients itself in a certain direction, like a magnet attuning itself to its field. He starts walking towards a cluster of chairs and couches on one side of the room, obscured by the people milling about, and…

And there’s Raleigh, spread out on a couch, head thrown back at an angle that looks like it should be painful. Everything in Yancy’s body _burns_ , then freezes, hollows him out, and he feels as if he’s just fallen back through the floor, like he’s floating as he practically _runs_ over towards his brother, name falling from his lips like a desperate prayer. When he reaches the kid’s side, he barely gets any kinds of reaction. He laces their fingers together, his other hand cupping the side of his brother’s face.

“You must be Yancy.”

The other voice has Yancy whipping his head around—although, to his credit, despite how stressed out he’s been lately, he doesn’t jump—to rest on the redhead who has, apparently, been sitting beside his brother this whole time. The other man’s brows are furrowed.

“Thought you weren’t supposed to get here for another,” he checks a watch that probably costs roughly as much as Yancy makes in an entire year, “twenty minutes.”

Yancy doesn’t say anything for a moment, just stares back at Chuck, his grip on his brother’s hand tightening until he finally says, “He needed my help.”

Raleigh makes a sort of mewling, groaning noise that has Yancy immediately turning back towards him, thumb reaching up to caress a cheek gently.

“Rals?” he whispers, not caring that Chuck’s right next to them both. He gets another sort of mumble, Raleigh’s body shifting underneath him slowly.

“He kept asking for you.” That tone in Chuck’s voice from before is back, the one that sets Yancy’s teeth on edge with its _knowing_. He clenches his jaw, still not looking at the other man.

“What happened to him?”

Yancy sees Chuck shrug out of the corner of his eye. “Well he’s high for one.”

Raleigh makes a soft, croaking noise in protest and Yancy immediately puts every ounce of his focus back on to his brother. Watches as one lid opens a fraction, revealing a sliver of those beautiful eyes that never fail to make his heart skip a heat, and leans in closer.

(“Yeah, right, brothers,” he hears Chuck mutter under his breath, and Yancy would deal with that except Raleigh’s _right there_. The center of his _everything_ is _right fucking there_ and—)

“Rals? You with me?”

"Yancy," Raleigh says, face splitting into a lazy grin. He works his tongue several times inside his mouth as though he's cleaning his teeth, chewing hard on nothing as he smiles.

"Hey, come here." Softly imploring with raised, wobbling arms. Beckoning for his brother to climb right on top of him. "Come here, come here, come here. I need you-ngh. M'thirsty. I need you to feel how soft the couch is right now."

Yancy blinks. Stares. Blinks again. Glances over at Chuck for a brief moment, getting a shrug in answer as if to say _how the fuck should I know?_ , before his eyes track back to where his brother is practically inviting him down. Down to practically straddle the one person he’s wanted for so long he can’t even remember a time he didn’t have feelings of some kind for the kid. His hand lands on the couch beside Raleigh’s head as he leans over further and, okay, yeah, it’s soft, but it’s not _that_ soft—

“Rals,” he protests weakly, a soft rebuke hidden in there somewhere because _christ_ he needs to get his brother out of here, not stand around feeling up furniture. He makes to stand up, the hand on the couch hooking under his brother’s armpit. “Rals, c’mon, it’s time to go home, okay? Can you stand? Can you do that for me, kiddo?”

“Woah- woah, Yancy no. No, no, no, no, no I’m good, I’m good, man.” Raleigh protests again, slowly sitting up. “I’m drunk. It’s fine. I’m good. I’m so good.”

He tries to shake him off a little but changes his mind halfway through and tries to pull him down to join them on the couch, instead. “C’mon. I just. I really wanna lay here with you. Is that okay? I wanna share this with you.”

Yancy is pointedly ignoring Chuck now, the way the guy’s just giving them a _look_ that has so much meaning and so many questions behind it. _Fuck_ , why the fuck does he have to be so obvious about this shit?

( _At least, obvious to everyone but Raleigh_ , his mind helpfully fills in.)

As he pitches forward, caught in Raleigh’s grip, Yancy’s hands fly back out to steady himself, to keep himself from fucking smothering his brother. Yeah. That’d be a _perfect_ way to end the night. He does manage to catch himself, though. With his hands on either side of Raleigh’s head, his arms sinking into the plush surface of the couch—okay, so maybe it’s softer than Yancy’d originally given it credit for, but _still_ —until his face is fucking inches from Raleigh’s. His brother’s eyes, now open more, are blown so wide that Yancy can barely see any color left in them.

“Raleigh,” he practically gasps out, because _fuck_ where the fuck did the kid get this shirt? The damn thing fucking hugs the kid like a second skin and Yancy can practically feel every inch of his brother through the points of contact between them. “Raleigh, if you really wanna cuddle we can do it at home, okay? Hell, we can even do it in a proper bed, if that’s what you want—”

Yancy bites his tongue hard enough that he tastes blood because _okay_ that’d come out a bit differently than he’d intended. His desperation, though, to get Raleigh out of here, to get him _safe_ , is pushing at the back of his mind like a glacier, slowly swallowing up everything in its path. He takes a breath before continuing, trying to keep the quaver out of his voice.

“Please, kid, just work with me here, okay? You’re high on,” he glances over at Chuck again, “something. You’re not thinking straight. Just...let me take you home, and we can share whatever you want, okay?”

“Okay.”

It’s as simple as that. Raleigh’s wants are simple and it’s all burbling up inside of him. How much he loves his brother. The kind of love he has for his brother. And he needs to tell him. He needs to tell him right fucking now because they’re all they have in the entire universe.

But Yancy wants to go home. And Raleigh won’t begrudge him that.

Chuck, for his part, decides he’s had enough and stands, clapping Yancy on the shoulder.

“You got this?”

Yancy looks up at the other man, glances at his shoulder then back before nodding.

“Yeah, thanks. I owe you one.”

“Mmhm,” Chuck nods and starts to walk away before stopping and speaking over his shoulder. “Take him home. Tuck him in. He’ll be up all night but make sure he drinks water. Let him come down naturally and expect a serious come down in about three days.”

“What is this, then? Anything else I should know? Like,” eyes squeezed shut, images flash behind Yancy’s lids before he opens them again, “am I gonna step out for five minutes and come back to find him seizing or some shit?”

“Everclear, probably cut with pingers judging by the state of half the people in here. He was buyin’ it off some bloke earlier.” Chuck answers. “And naw, I reckon he’s over the worst of it now. He’s just in love with everything.”

Yancy nods, muttering, “That explains a lot, then,” as if he understands what the other man is saying—Google is going to become his best friend in a few minutes, he’s sure—before hoisting himself up and kneeling down on the floor beside the couch. This way, he’s looking his brother straight in the eye and has some fucking leverage since he isn’t being octopus’d anymore. At least, not as badly. There will be a time and place to berate his brother about _buying fucking drugs_ , but that time and place is neither here nor now. Later.

“Can you stand?” He keeps his words soft, gentle, carding his fingers through his brother’s hair almost absently. The quaver is still there, still makes both his voice and touch shake, but it’s getting better. They’re getting out of this gilded shit-hole.

“Yeah,” Raleigh answers, watching Chuck wave and then take his leave over his brother’s shoulder. “I’m good, seriously. And he’s screwing with you. Everclear is vodka. I’m not too drunk to know that.”

But it’s half mumbled as his attention slowly focuses back to Yancy. His face. His hair. Raleigh leans forward a little bit, scooting to the edge of the sofa and carding his fingers through his brother’s hair in return. It’s electric. “You’re soft..” He marvels, like it’s the discovery of a lifetime. But it’s short lived as he leans in a little more to press their foreheads together. “We never talk anymore, man. I miss you. I miss you and I love you and it hurts to see you so fucked up over Tendo. I want you, more than anything, to be happy. That’s all I want. You’re my world.”

Something cold drips down Yancy’s spine, something ( _did I make him need me?_ ) almost like fear, like panic. He swallows it back down as it tries crawl out his throat, tries to ignore how fucking _close_ their faces are, how easy it would be to just...lean forward those few inches and seal their mouths together.

 _It’s the drugs talking_ , his mind supplies, for once being helpful. (“ _He’s just in love with everything._ ”) Just the drugs and his own fucked-up mind. It doesn’t mean what he thinks it means—what he _wants_ it to mean. Raleigh isn’t in his right mind. You’re okay, you can do this.

Still, he can’t stop the words that spill forth.

“And you’re mine, kiddo.” He lets his voice turn teasing, still gentle, though. “But if you really think that I have a thing for Tendo, you’re waaay higher than you think you are. C’mon, c’mere.”

He wiggles one arm under Raleigh’s shoulders, the other under the kid’s legs, and hoists him bridal style. It takes a few seconds, shifting to figure out his new balance and how to not hit his little brother’s head against a wall, but he’s confident he can make it down the stairs and out to the car. Which is hopefully still there and not towed or some shit. Still, he can’t resist a light joke as he starts walking.

“Christ, Rals, did you drink two hundred pounds of booze or somethi—” If he had a free hand he would slap himself. _Fuck_. Stupid stupid stupid. _Great_ thing to say to your formerly-anorexic brother, Yancy. Just perfect. A-plus brothering.

“I-I mean, haven’t done this in a while, have we? When did you grow up so much, huh kiddo?”

Raleigh had squawked when he was picked up but gave into it easily enough, curling his arm around Yancy’s neck. It’s nice this way. He can press his face into Yancy’s neck and breathe in his scent. He could part his lips and just..taste.

It’s only when Yancy speaks that he perks back up. “No.. not for a long time.” He ignores the comment about how heavy he is. He knows Yancy didn’t mean anything by it. “ I can walk, Yance. I’m okay. Seriously.”  Though he isn’t moving to detangle or get down.

Yancy pauses a few steps from the top of the stairs, debating, before nodding to himself.

“Alright then,” he grunts as he lets Raleigh’s feet down, keeping a tight grip around the kid’s shoulders to make sure nothing bad happens. “But the second you so much as stumble it’s back to honeymoon-esque bliss, got it?”

“Got it.”

Yancy’s not sure where the joke came from, but he is sure that the feeling of his brother’s arm around his neck is nice, and that he already misses the press of Raleigh against his skin, the warm puffs of breath ghosting over him. He steers them down the steps, making sure to go slow, taking one at a time. It wouldn’t do for him to have sped all this way only to have his brother faceplant at the bottom of a flight of steps. A trip to the hospital was the _last_ thing either of them needed right now. As they reach the second floor, though, something that’s been nagging at him tugs a little harder.

“Why’d you think I had a thing for Tendo, though?” The words are flung from between his lips before he can really think about them, confusion winning out. “He’s _married_ , Rals. And like a brother to me.”

 _Not_ , his mind whispers, _like that would stop you, apparently_.

Their footsteps are heavy as they go, careful even though Raleigh had never felt so good. He takes a big breath at the bottom of the stairs and turns, leaning back against the wall and absently petting it’s flocked patterning.

“Well-” Raleigh starts, brow furrowing as he pieces it together, lips pursing. “You said it was someone I knew. Someone we’re friends with or something but that he was like..totally unavailable. We don’t have that many friends and out of the ones we do have who aren’t single… I mean it makes sense. Tendo is..great. And I see you killing yourself over this and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

He drags a hand through his sweaty hair. It’s hot. His heart is racing. He’s flushed and trembling a little but it must be from excitement because there’s nothing wrong. Maybe from the sugar in the cocktails he’s been drinking all night.

“Who else could it be?”

And that, right there, is the million dollar question that Yancy wishes he could answer. Not that he could answer honestly, but that he wishes he had something better to say than what he does end up saying.

“Don’t worry about it, kiddo, seriously.” He tries to not come off as begging, or condescending, or anything other than honest, because that’s what he _needs_ to be right now. It’s also the one thing he absolutely _can not_ be. “I know you want to help, but…” He sighs, using his free hand to follow Raleigh’s through the kid’s hair. Fuck, he feels like a furnace.

“There’s really nothing you can do, alright?”

And then, because he’s a horrible fucking person and an even worse brother, he leans forward to press his lips to his brother’s forehead. Which is a trick considering the four inches Raleigh has on him. (No, he’s not bitter, seriously)

“I’ll deal with it,” Yancy breathes the words against the overheated flesh. Water. Chuck had said Raleigh would need water. The way the kid’s heating up underneath him, Yancy’s not surprised. “It’s not your problem, kiddo.”

“It _is_ ,” Raleigh breathes out, looking at him with glassy eyes. And before yancy can escape, like he _always_ does, Raleigh’s hands dart up to grab him and loop his forefingers through Yancy’s belt loops.

“You don’t get it. We share _everything_ and it’s like we’re strangers now! You barely look at me, you used to _look at me_.”

His voice breaks as he says it, anguish overtaking him. The pain of seeing someone he loves more than anything compartmentalizing and brushing him off, again, is too much right now.

 _It’s the drugs, it’s not him, it’s the drugs_. Yancy lets those words repeat on loop in his mind, lets Chuck’s words from before join them. He, himself, is a part of everything, after all. Besides, Raleigh probably doesn’t even mean it that way. Hell, not probably, there’s no _way_ he could mean it the way Yancy’s brain is trying to take it.

“I do look at you, Rals,” he confesses, letting his own meaning leak into the words but studiously looking down to avoid his brother’s gaze. Let him take it the way he wants. “I see you all the time. I...we do still talk.”

Alright, maybe that’s a lie he’s just trying to sell himself and he’s pretty sure they both know it. Still, what else can he say?

“You’re my brother, Raleigh,” he looks back up, “and I _love_ you, okay? You’re never gonna get rid of me. I’ll always be here to talk, or to listen, or whatever you need. Because...I told you. You’re my world, too. And I—”

Yancy cuts himself off, jerking his head to the side as his hands fall to the arms Raleigh’s using to hold on to his pants. That had been way too fucking close, too close to an _actual_ , real, _complete_ confession. _Fuck_ , he needed to get them out of here.

“I don’t want you to think that you’re anything less than that,” he finishes, somewhat lamely. It’s still the truth, sure. But his edited truth. The truth he can stomach.

And it should end there. Raleigh should listen and nod and take it as good enough because this is more than he and Yancy have communicated in a long time. It should be good enough.

It isn’t.

Raleigh swallows, his mouth dry. He wets his lips, also far too dry.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

It’s hoarse as he speaks. “I can’t, man. I’ve tried.“ He gives a breath and tips his head back for a second with a little groan. The world rushes back around him. For a blissful second he feels like he’s falling backwards in endless weightlessness. “I need to get this out of me. Can we-”

Inhibitions drastically lowered. The need to heal is outweighing the need to hide. Raleigh comes back to center and opens his eyes. He glances around. There are too many people. There are too many people who might recognize him. This is personal.

“Can we be alone? I need to talk to you. Really talk to you. And I need you to hear me.”

“I...yeah,” Yancy nods, putting his arms back around Raleigh’s shoulders. The kid _seems_ steady enough, but Yancy will be damned if he lets his brother do something stupid now. This is obviously important. And, somehow, it feels like it’s a long time coming. So, yeah, Yancy just nods and leads them down the second flight of steps and out the front door. His car is still there, and he brushes off the annoyed look the valet gives him as he fenangles Raleigh into the passenger’s seat.

Neither of them say anything on the drive home. There are a million things Yancy wants to say, a million questions he wants to ask, but he’d promised. Promised to listen. And if Raleigh’s not speaking yet, well...he’ll wait. For Raleigh, he’ll wait.

Their silence continues until they make it back to the apartment. Yancy sits them both down on their own couch—and, alright, maybe it’s not as soft as the one at the club—gets his brother two glasses of water as well as a third for himself, and continues waiting.

Raleigh sits and picks at the fabric of the couch, lost for a moment in the texture of the weave under his fingers. They hadn’t picked it, it’d come with the place, but he didn’t mind it all that much. It was broken in and comfortable and better than they could rightly afford. He’d leveled out in the car a little bit, thinking long and hard about what it was he was going to say. How he was going to say it. If it was worth saying at all.

The sober part of him, and there is a little one, said to leave it alone and go the fuck to his room. Lock himself up and throw away the key and not ruin his life. The rest of him, the gurning, blissed side that was about to burst, was screaming for him to just fucking do it because anything that might happen is better than this intolerable pain.

He’s never been very sensible, before. Why start now.

“I need to be clear with you that I know exactly what I’m saying right now. I’m lucid. These are my words.”

But he didn’t look up until after.

“You’re a really good person, Yancy. You’ve given up...everything for me. You didn’t have to but you did and I’m a selfish asshole for what I’m about to do but I can’t do this any more. I can’t kill myself, it’s not fair.”

He holds up a hand, opening then closing his mouth. That was a turn of phrase. He’s not looking to die. He’d thought about it, but no. That wasn’t the answer.

“I look at you and I see everything I could only ever hope to be. You inspire me to be..” Raleigh sighs, trying to find his focus when, and it always has been, his focus is Yancy.

“You inspire me to be the best version of myself I can. The truest version of myself but I’m not being true. And I’ve lived with this for too long and it’s _crushing me._ I’m I can’t talk to you and I can’t look at you and we’re strangers and now I’m pouring my heart out to strangers on the internet--”

He has to stop himself, snapping his mouth closed with a sharp click, shifting to lean against the back of the couch with his elbow perched over the back and his hand resting gently on his forehead. His hands are cold. His face feels warm. It’s nice.

“All I want is for you to be happy and you aren’t. And you chasing this guy is literally physically hurting me because there is no one who could ever love you as much as I do.”

There. He said it. He’s trembling but he said it. His arm slides back down the couch to rest in his lap, shoulders shaving hard.

“And I’m sick.” His voice catches. He doesn’t mean to get over emotional. He doesn’t mean to get worked up or for his eyes to start stinging and he has to look away for a moment before forcing himself to look the other man in the eye. “I’m sick and I’m wrong and a coward and I’m fucking us up because I _love you_!”

Yancy stares at his brother. Everything,the entire world world just...falls away until there’s nothing left but him, his brother, and a single, reverberating thought in his mind.

“No.”

He doesn’t realize he’s given the thought voice until he sees Raleigh’s face sort of...twitch.

This can’t be happening.

“No,” he repeats more strongly this time.

( _Did I make him need me?_ )

“No, Rals, you _can’t_.”

( _Did I do that to him?_ )

“Rals, you…”

( _Is it, I don’t know, some seed of this fucked-up whatever that’s inside of me jumping over to him?_ )

“You…”

( _Is it my fault?_ )

He can’t fucking _breathe_.

This can’t be happening.

“You _can’t_.” His eyes are hot, vision blurred, and it’s only when he blinks that Yancy realizes that he’s _crying_. He’s fucking _crying_ and _fuck_ what—

( _What the fuck_ can _I do?_ )

“No, Raleigh, please, you can’t—”

He chokes on his own words. Tastes the salt of his own tears.

“Please, Rals, _no_ —”

_What have I done?_

Some part of him screams—fucking _screams_ —that he needs to comfort his brother, that Raleigh has made himself incredibly vulnerable and he’s just making it _so_ much worse. And yet…

He’s actually done it, hasn’t he? Corrupted the last beautiful, pure thing in their lives. All this time, he’d been trying to convince himself it was just his imagination, that there was no _way_ Raleigh could be as broken, as _twisted_ , as he is. That he hadn’t done the one thing that haunted his nightmares and sleepless nights. Before he can stop himself, he’s grabbing Raleigh’s hands, gripping them more tightly than he probably should, fucking _begging_ —

“Take it back Rals, _please_. Tell me it’s not you, that it’s...that it’s anything else, but _please_ don’t tell me that I did this to you, too. I can’t— _please_.”

It comes like a punch in the gut to them both. Raleigh says what he needs to and watches as, in the blink of an eye, his brother crumbles. Rejects him and _cries_ and grabs him. Begging him to take it back.

“I can’t,” He whispers, shaking his head slowly. It’s too much. This is too much. “I’m sorry Yancy, I can’t take it back.”

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

He tries to draw his hands back but finds he’s lost his strength. He tries not to cry but seeing Yancy’s tears only make him cry harder, a ragged sob working it’s way up and out of his chest.

“I’m sorry-” He weeps, still shaking his head. “I don’t know _why_ I’m this way but I _am_.” The dam had broken. “I’ve tried. I’ve tried so hard not to but it won’t go away and _I’m so sorry_.”

Another ragged sob. Another vain attempt to move backwards. Yancy is so determined that it isn’t true but it is. And he’s vile. He’s disgusting. He’s mud. “I can’t go on with this inside me anymore, I’ve tried everything to not do this but it’s _killing me_ , Yancy.” 

With those words, Yancy knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he’s failed.

He’s failed his brother. He’s failed himself. Hell, in a way, he’s failed the memory of their mother. He’s failed on so many levels that he just feels like he’s _drowning_ , like he can’t pull in a breath, like he’s thrashing about wildly, looking for something, _anything_ , to hold on to, to keep him steady, yet all he can find is emptiness.

He’s _failed_.

And now his brother’s hurting. _He’s_ hurting his brother—he _has hurt_ , has _sullied_ , his brother in a way that he can never possibly even _think_ of atoning for—and it’s still his job to fix that. To make Raleigh better. To make his brother happy. To fix _this_.

Almost as if in a daze, he pulls Raleigh forward, one hand reaching up to card through his brother’s hair, fingertips tracing over the kid’s scalp. His shirt is getting wet with tears and snot, but that’s alright. He doesn’t care. He’s failed. There is literally nothing he can do that will be worse than what he’s already done. The thought is, in a way, liberating, even as loathing and hatred claw at his chest, ripping pieces from his heart and devouring them in screaming, steaming fragments.

“It’s not your fault, kiddo,” he whispers. “It-it’s okay. Don’t cry, Rals, it’s okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Sorry I did this to you. Sorry I couldn’t be a better brother. Sorry I made you as sick and fucked in the head as I am. Sorry that this has been hurting you and it’s all my fucking fault.

“I’m sorry I made you like me. I didn’t mean to, I swear.”

Would never wish this on you Raleigh would never _dream_ of trying to do this to you ( _I think I’d make it so that he loved me_ — ** _LIAR_** ) I’m so sorry I ruined you god what have I done.

“I’m sorry, Rals.”

Please forgive me I don’t deserve it but please I’m begging you I can’t I can’t do this on my own I _can’t_ I need you I’m so sick so fucked up I _can’t do this without you I_ —

“Please...I’m so, so sorry.”

It happens so quickly. One moment Yancy is pinning and turning him away and the next he’s pulling him close. It very nearly gives Raleigh whiplash and he wants to scream. He wants to _run_. He wants to stop existing and it doesn’t matter how blissfully happy he’d been an hour ago this is hell. He’s in hell. Yancy finally knows and he immediately rejects him before forcing him into his arms (Raleigh struggles at first but selfishly gives in. Passive in his brother’s attempts to pacify).

But through all the _I’m sorry_ s and _please forgive me_ s, there’s more.

“Made me like you..” He murmurs, shaking uncontrollably, fingers tangled in Yancy’s shirt front. He can’t breathe. He can’t think. But he can hear. And he knows what he just heard.

“You?” Cowardice gives way to confusion. He looks up, blinking back fresh tears. “You didn’t do anything to me- what- what do you mean?”

Raleigh’s eyes on him are like the sun’s heat, and Yancy is drawn into them just as irresistibly as if he were an insect—and, really, he’s no better than a fucking insect, so what a perfect metaphor. Simile. Whatever. He hears the confusion. Hears the _pain_ , though, too. The hand not still tangled in his brother’s hair wipes the tears tracks off that beautiful— _perfect, pure, innocent_ —face, and he shakes his own head.

“I’ve tried, for _years_ ,” Yancy whispers. “I’ve tried so fucking hard. Tried to keep you free from this—this _thing_ ,” he gestures at himself with a nod of his head, “inside of me. All I ever wanted was for you to be happy, to have a _normal_ life. Not to follow in the footsteps of an older brother who’s so fucked that he—”

He chokes, but the truth is just pouring out of him now, a torrent finally unleashed, and he’s powerless to stop it.

“That he wanted his little brother when he was _sixteen_. When his little brother was _twelve_. Fucking _twelve_. I-I’m _sick_. I’m fucking _twisted_ , Rals.” He’s begging again, _imploring_ his brother to hear the truth in these words, the words that have defined him for so long, that are not so much truthful as they are _The Truth_. They are Yancy’s Truth, capitol words and all. “I tried so, _so_ hard to keep it from you. To keep it hidden. To act _normal_. To pretend that everything you do didn’t make me want to just _throw you against a wall_ and—”

He gags as what he’d just said registers in his mind, and has to fight the urge to actually throw up all over his brother. He takes a deep breath, trying to clear the nausea away, trying to get his own fucking body and his emotions back under control.

Like with everything else, apparently, he fails.

“I could never date anyone because, every time I tried, all I did was compare them to you. I’d never even _had_ you and I didn’t want anything else and I—I couldn’t even _imagine_ my life without you, y’know? God, I just...this need, I feel inside of me every fucking second of every fucking minute of every fucking _day_ … it’s _wrong_ , Raleigh. It’s fucking been _killing_ me every single fucking day, but,” he takes a shuddering breath, “the one thing that kept me going, the one thing that made it all okay was that, one day, you would be happy. You would be free of me. But now?”

His hands stop moving, still resting against his brother’s scalp and face.

“Now I wish it had.”

It was like a knife. Yancy would rather be dead than-

No. Shake it off. That isn’t what he’s trying to say. Is it? Nothing is making sense anymore. Everything is numb. Numb to hold the torrent of heaving sorrow at bay for as long as it possibly can but-- in this moment-- in this still moment-- Raleigh sees him. Really sees him. Them. Together.

And he realizes...for all of Yancy’s amazing strength, he doesn’t have the strength to breach the space between them.

Yancy loves him. Yancy is sick like he is.

For once, Raleigh thinks, struck with the concept as quickly as it comes to him. He’s the one with the strength. He can do what Yancy can’t. And before his brother can stop him Raleigh releases the death grip he’s had on his shirt, slaps his brother’s hand away and grabs him-- hands on his cheeks-- dragging them to connect with a hard, wild kiss.

He kisses Yancy like he’s trying to steal the breath from his lungs. He kisses him like the world is ending. Like this might be the only chance he ever has. 

Yancy freezes. He can’t move. He can’t fucking _breathe_. He’s not even sure his heart is still beating.

Raleigh is _kissing him_.

And it feels _good_.

Revulsion and loathing crawl up his throat, hot on the heels of that feeling, but then Raleigh makes a little sound against him, a little, broken sound, and Yancy can’t deny him this. He can’t _not_ give his brother this.

And, ultimately, he’s a selfish, broken asshole.

He kisses Raleigh back.

He was wrong. He _could_ fail more than he’d thought he could.

He kisses Raleigh back and cries, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. He should stop this. But he doesn’t want to. And he just...can’t.

He lets the sensations of his brother’s lips on his own flow over him, flow _through_ him, committing them to memory because he knows he’ll never have this moment again.

He kisses his brother like he’s drowning, like he’s dying. He kisses his brother like a prayer.

He kisses his brother like it’s goodbye.

And he weeps.

What else can he do?

“I’ve wanted you,” Raleigh gasps when the kiss finally breaks. Long and deep and thorough. He doesn’t dare move back. Doesn’t dare to look at Yancy. Doesn’t dare to disconnect their lips more than he has to and as he speaks the vibration passes between them.

“I’ve wanted you for as long as I can remember. The moment I knew what love was I knew I had it for you..”

He’s still shaking, some mix of adrenaline and fear and exhilaration.

“You’re all I want. You didn’t do this to me. If anything-” He huffs a shaky laugh.”-I did this to you. I fell in love with you all on my own. You’re it for me, Yance.”

And that is Raleigh’s Truth in it’s entirety. No filters. No holding back. And it’s terrifying.

He—

What?

 _What_?

“...What?” Yancy can’t manage anything more than that, thoughts racing, whirling. He feels like he’s drunk, like _he’s_ the one who’d gone out to a party and gotten high. Everything feels like it’s floating, like it’s made of mist, like the only real, tangible thing in the universe is his brother’s lips ghosting over his own as they speak.

“Wh— _how_?”

Nothing makes sense any more. Raleigh has wanted him...as long as he can remember? How is that even possible? Fuck that, it’s _not_ possible. What about him is even _remotely_ desirable to someone so incredible, so... _perfect_ like Raleigh?

It’s only when he shivers from the sensation of his brother’s lips still sliding against his, there-but-not, that Yancy realizes he’d asked the last question aloud. _Shit_.

It was too late, though. he’d said it. He says it and Raleigh hears it and whimpers gently, his head spinning just as much. Not from drugs or drink, but from him. Them. From finally, _finally_ stepping out of the shadows into the crushing light of truth.

“Because you’re _perfect_ to me,” he answers, still not quite able to move. Well, able, but not willing. “You’re beautiful. And smart. And _strong_ \-- I don’t know. You love me. Everything you do is just..amazing.”

His hands creep his Yancy’s cheeks and into his perfect, ridiculous hair. “I love you. I love everything about you. I can’t imagine a life without you, either. And I’ve thought about it. I have. But I need you. And it’s fucked up? And I get that? And we’ve established this? But I don’t care anymore.”

  Yancy stares. Stares at his brother. Hears the words that come out of his mouth. Listens to them. Processes them. Tries to make sense of them. And…

And he allows himself to hope. To hope for just one thousandth of a thousandth of a second that maybe, maybe this is okay. Maybe they can make this work. Maybe, it doesn’t matter that they’re brothers and, like Raleigh said, it’s fucked up, but, maybe? Together—

The hope freezes. Cracks. Splinters.

Breaks apart.

Because he can’t.

He can’t do this to them, to _Raleigh_. He isn’t allowed to have this hope. It’s _wrong_.

He didn’t have the strength before to bring them together, didn’t have the strength to close those last few inches separating them from one another. Raleigh's wrong. Yancy's not strong. He’s weak. Weak for letting this go this far. Weak for allowing himself to even entertain this fucked-up hope in the first place.

Weak for thinking he ever had a fucking chance.

He might not have the strength to take what he wants. But he does have the strength to do what’s _right_.

“I c—”

His throat closes on the words, and he has to wheeze them out. He can do this. Even if it will destroy them forever. Raleigh will forgive him one day. Will understand. He has to.

He _has_ to.

He reaches up and slowly removes Raleigh’s hands from him, standing off the couch and taking a step away. Everything feels cold. Distant. Wrong. But this is _right_. This is what’s right. It’s what  he has to do. He doesn’t have a choice. He doesn’t—

“I can't, Rals. I’m sorry, I” he clears his throat, “I can’t.”

Yancy leaves his brother on the couch—for the first time in his life, leaves his brother when he needs him—and locks himself in his room. Leans against the door, collapsing into a heap on the floor, head in his hands.

“It’s what’s right,” he whispers to himself, repeats it like a mantra. “This is _right_.”

The cold radiating from his chest is little comfort.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry we're so so sorry it wasn't supposed to happen this way. It just. Did.  
> For those curious, the drug in question is MDMA dissolved in Everclear. When Chuck says "pingers" he's referring to MDMA AKA Mandy/Molly/Ecstasy.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we both did over half of this on our phones. Please to forgives any silly mistakes.

Raleigh can’t breathe.

He doesn’t feel in control of his body. It’s like he isn’t even there. Like this isn’t even happening at all.

Maybe he is high. Maybe he’s high and this is a trip and it’s not happening. That’s possible, right? Like he just passed out at the party and he’s actually still on that sofa in Chuck’s lap?

Yancy says _I can’t_. He says _I’m sorry_. The words happen, they’re born, they exist now.

Along with all the words Raleigh had given birth to. Along with the confessions equal in sin born from his brother’s mouth.

Sick- I love you- sick like me. I didn’t mean to make you sick like me-

 _I’ve wanted you. Since I was sixteen, I’ve wanted you_ , it swirls in his head so quickly that he gets dizzy, and the sheer magnitude of it all swarms up from inside his chest like a million black, oozing spiders as they crawl from his lips and eyes and ears.

The space in front of him is empty. Yancy’s bedroom door closes and the sound of the tiny deadbolt is like thunder.

“Yancy-” He whispers with no voice at all for the darkness in him has swallowed it.

 _What have I done_.

It’s too much and not enough and a million other things, other directions he can’t reason out and it hurts. It _hurts_ and as soon as he recognizes that it splits through him, pain blooming and he thinks, in his state of non thinking, this is what dying feels like. He’s dying.

“Yancy, please. I'm sorry, I--.” Again, this time louder. Begging. Pleading. There’s no response. He shouldn’t expect one. “ _YANCY!”_

Action rolls through his limbs like he’s been jerked on puppet strings, pitching forward and then to the side, lashing at the coffee table and upturning it with a heavy booted foot. He bends, grabs it by one tiny wooden leg and swings it at the wall where it collides and smashes with a great splintering crash sending wood and glass across the front room like shrapnel.

“FUCK YOU!” Roaring. He’s roaring but it doesn’t feel like him. He’s standing still and passive watching a madman in his body destroy the place. Watching as he who is not he grabs and flings the lamp that sits next to the couch. He watches as it shatters against the front door. He doesn’t feel the porcelain spray that cuts his hands and face. He doesn’t feel the blood that drops onto the shirt he doesn’t own. He doesn’t shiver as he rips the stupid piece of cloth from his body and strides across the room to throw every single thing from the bookshelf before tipping that onto the ground as well.

Because Raleigh wouldn’t do these things. Normal Raleigh would be begging on the other side of his brother's door.

Raleigh wouldn’t ruin their stuff. Raleigh wouldn’t ruin their _life_. And yet here he is. At three o’clock in the morning. Doing exactly that. It’s a wonder the neighbors haven’t called the police.

He screams his brother’s name again, no curses but a simple _I HATE YOU_ echoing around the plastered walls. They’re old, these plaster walls and they aren’t spared as he punches one as hard as he can just to the left of the kitchen’s archway. These old plaster walls that give under his mania and collapse in on themselves taking blood as their feeble revenge for destruction. Raleigh screams in pain and anguish, drawing his bleeding fist back and striking again. And again. Anything to get the poison out. Anything to draw the tar from his bones.

And he screams. And those screams become sobs and he shakes as he’s violently thrust back in his body. It isn’t numb anymore but what he wouldn’t do for that feeling back because this? These millions of little knives taking him apart are so much worse. His stomach is in knots like it can and _will_ revolt at any second.

“I hate you-” He sobs, but this time it’s broken and garbled. A whimper at best. His knees buckle and he leans against the wall, blind with sorrow. Blind from his tears. They just won’t stop. It won’t stop. The pain won’t stop.

But the overwhelming need to run takes hold. To get up and grab the keys and his jacket and just run. And the need grips his body and it moves without thinking. Early morning air cuts into his lungs but he isn’t anywhere near tired. He isn’t anywhere near anything besides out of his mind. Where does he go. What does he do.

In the end it doesn’t matter. He stalks out to the parking lot towards the car. His hands are shaking so badly he almost drops the keys but he doesn’t and slips into the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel. Key in the ignition.

“I'm sorry-” It’s back to a whisper. He knows if he starts the car nothing good will happen. And amidst all the darkness and his heaving, broken soul, a curl of sense pipes up and says _Don’t do this._ The voice says take your phone out. Talk to someone. Anyone.

And he does.

 

_[[To: ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

_From: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

**_Help_ **

_I fucked up. Its over. I told him and I don’t know what the fuck just happened. He begged me to take it back. He begged for me to not be like him. He confessed he’s wanted me since we were kids. That we’re the same. I got what I’ve wanted my whole life and it’s all gone to hell. I kissed him and he rejected me. I’m an idiot. I’m a fucking idiot. I don’t know what to do. I’ve just ruined our lives._

_I don’t know your name. I don’t know where you are or if you’ll even get this and I don’t have your number or I’d call I’m that desperate._

_I’m sitting in my car. I know that if I start the engine I will do something stupid and never come back._

_Please give me a reason not to. I’m begging you.]]_

 

Yancy curls up against his door when his brother cries— _screams_ —his name, knees bumping his forehead. Forces himself to listen to the sounds of destruction, the cursing, and then the words he's been dreading yet longing to hear. The words he's been running from for eight years. The words some part of him has known for years—hell, probably since the moment he'd laid eyes on that adorable infant face twenty one years ago—have always been inevitable, has been expecting, not for if, but for _when_ he ruins everything.

_"I HATE YOU!"_

Lungs burn, and it's only then that Yancy realizes he's not fucking breathing, that his mouth is spread in a soundless scream. Hoarse, harsh sounds drip from his teeth as his body tries to both cry out and remain silent. He thought he was ready for this. That he could do this. That all these years would have somehow granted him... _something_ , some kind of defense against this expected pain.

His brother's words have given way to animalistic screams, harsh things that reach into Yancy's chest and rake frozen claws between his ribs. That force his mouth wide enough that his jaw pops, his hands pulling at his hair with enough force to make his scalp creak. That force themselves down his throat, down to his very core, wrapping glacial fingers around his heart and _squeezing_ , ripping, and _tearing_ until he's nothing but rent tatters, until he can do nothing else except cry out in his own mind and drown in his brother's pain.

He did this.

That one thought circulates in Yancy's mind endlessly, forcing his head further down, whispering from every corner. Him. This is his fault. He did this. He failed Raleigh, he failed the one person in his life who means a damn thing, and then he'd hurt him. Hurt _his brother_. Hurt Raleigh.

He deserves this. Deserves the pain, the guilt, the open ache in his chest. Deserves to be torn down to nothing, deserves to be destroyed the way Raleigh is destroying their apartment.

 _Not Raleigh_ , something whispers, _Raleigh would never, could never do this. This is you. This is what you've done to him. This is what you've made him._

The noises outside change, gaining the distinct cadence of flesh and bone striking something hard, something that gives but not enough. Screams and shouting and incoherent hate warping until his brother is sobbing, weeping, still whispering his hatred, voice _broken_. And somehow it's worse. It's so, so much worse than the screaming, the shouting or the destruction. Yancy would say anything, do _anything_ , to ensure Raleigh never makes those noises again.

But this time he can't. He can't do anything, can't fix anything, can't make it better. Can't change this. Can't do anything except bring a fist to his mouth and bite down on it until he tastes blood to keep himself from saying anything, from saying the one thing he knows will end his brother's suffering. The one thing he can't say.

There's the sound of movement, keys jangling, and then the front door slams. Silence dominates.

Only then does Yancy let out a sound, a small thing that pushes through the smallest of gaps in his defenses, widening them and pushing them apart until Yancy's entire body is shaking, his throat _burning_ , as screams—though the word is hardly adequate to describe the noises he's making—tear him apart. He doesn't move beyond the shaking, doesn't uncurl from his position against the door, doesn't even allow himself to think. Just shreds his vocal cords and sinks into his own suffering.

He's not sure how long he stays like that. It feels like hours, _days_ , and yet only seconds. All Yancy knows is that his phone chirps in his pocket, vibrating against his leg for a moment before falling silent. He wants to ignore it. Wants to be left here, alone like he deserves.

But it might be Raleigh.

That thought alone has him scrambling to retrieve his phone from his jeans, quickly swiping across the screen. He lets out a breath, though, when he sees it's just an email, but the previewed subject and sender have him sitting up straighter and wiping the snot from his face.

**_Help_ **

He's failed his brother more completely than he's ever feared. He'll be damned if he's going to fail the only other person in the world who understands him.

He thumbs through to the message, reads it, and—

Reads through it again. Rapidly scrolls back and finds the last set of emails he and his friend had exchanged. Reads through them with a different eye, comparing dates in his head. Events.

Yancy speed-reads back through the messages he and Lottery have exchanged. So many times they'd both said their lives were eerily similar. So many parallels between them. He's convinced himself that it must've just been a case of similar circumstances breeding similar outcomes, but now...

_Fuck._

It's _impossible._

"Raleigh?" The word is a whisper, an idea so absurd that Yancy can scarcely give it breath. And yet...

He thumbs back to the most recent email, reads it one last time, something frozen curling around his gut. Yancy picks himself up off the floor, typing furiously as he does, stopping only to open doors, ignoring shoes, the mess that is the living room, the shards of glass and porcelain that cut into his bare feet—ignoring _everything_ —in his haste. Nothing else matters. Nothing else has _ever_ mattered.

 

_[[To: lotterysnacks@jaegermail.com_

_From:ybananchor@jaegermail.com_

**_Re:Help_ **

_I'm coming. Don't do anything. Please. I'm coming, kiddo. ]]_

 

He runs out to the parking lot and nearly weeps when he sees that the car is still there, that his brother has tucked himself into the driver's seat but that the car is still off. Somehow makes his way over to the car without remembering the trip there, just knows he's rapping on the glass with one hand, the other pressing his phone flat against the clear surface, the email Raleigh had just sent him lit up on the screen.

"Raleigh, please don't go," he's shouting to be heard through the glass, giving exactly zero fucks if he wakes the whole fucking building. "Please don't do it. Don't do this. I—" he chokes, but manages to keep going, "I love you. I _need_ you, kiddo. Please. Don't. Don't leave me. Please don't."

Maybe he's begging.

Maybe he doesn't care.

Because maybe, if Raleigh goes out there and wraps himself around a semi, maybe Yancy has nothing left to live for.

Maybe the thought of his brother dying is scarier than anything Yancy had ever allowed himself to consider.

"Please...please, I'm sorry, Please don't, Raleigh. I'm sorry..."

Yancy hits the window and the noise is so sudden that Raleigh drops his phone, startling and whipping around from where he’d been crouched over the steering wheel staring at his phone. Willing something to happen. Anything.

He hadn’t expected this.

But there Yancy is, pressed up and begging through the glass. The glare of his phone is too bright and hurts Raleigh’s eyes but he looks at it. Looks at Yancy. Looks at it again.

“No.” He breathes.

That’s the email he’d written to his friend how-

_No, no, no nonono!_

He performs the same quick mental calculations his brother had. The same emails recalled to memory. The conversations and gaps and lapses in communication.

Fingers curl around the steering wheel, white with force and he shakes his head. He’s exhausted but fresh tears seem capable of springing from nowhere. Pathetic ones that well and sting and chant abuse.

“Not you,” He whines, voice breaking.

If the world hadn’t already collapsed in on itself it would be now. Suddenly the email makes sense. A little garbled but Y - yancy, B - becket, Anchorage. Yancy’s creativity with anon email addresses is nothing short of miserable. Why hadn’t he seen it before.

Maybe because he wasn’t trying to. Maybe because he was actively trying to have a friend who understood him and that friend being his brother-- his brother he’s been talking about all this time?! No. _NO._

“I can’t.” It’s weak. He’s weak. He’s weak and shaking and he can’t think for the torrent of evil, putrid rot in his head. He can’t, He can’t, he can’t! “I’m ss-sorry, please not you, anyone but you!”

Yancy can only watch as his brother turns to face him, eyes alighting on the phone in his hand, and—

Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. Raleigh’s freaking out. He can’t hear a word the kid’s saying, but he can read his lips easily enough at this distance

 _No_ , he’s saying, _please not you_.

This is _not_ the reaction Yancy’d been expecting. _Fuck_.

“Raleigh,” he tries, laying his hand flat against the glass of the window, keeping his voice raised so he can be heard, “it’s okay. Please, Raleigh, just…” A glance down; the doors aren’t locked. He could just open the door, but squashes the thought. The last thing he wants to do is spook the kid. “Please. Open the door. Please don’t...”

 _Please don’t leave me_.

He doesn’t say it, but Yancy can feel tears spilling down his cheeks in the dark, probably invisible to his brother in the shadow the parking lot lights cast on his face.

“Please, Rals. I meant what I said. You read it. I know you did. I meant it: without you, I...I don’t—I _can’t_. Don’t do it. _Please_.”

His hand is leaving smudges on the glass that practically glow with reflected light, distorting his brother’s face, but Yancy presses it more firmly against the glass.

 _Take it_ , he thinks desperately, _take my hand. Hold on. For me. **Please**._

It’s only his breath fogging the window that tells him he’d whispered the last few words aloud.

But what can be gained from this? What possible resolution is there?

Raleigh should listen to his brother. He knows he should listen to Yancy, every part of his common sense, everything he knows says to open the door.

He can’t make his hands move to the handle. But he can make them move to the ignition. He can make the key turn and the engine roar to life.

And like the coward he is, like the coward his father was, he runs. It’s one motion to the gearstick, another to pull into reverse. He doesn’t have to look. His eyes are glued to his brother’s. Wide with terror, foot clumsily slipping onto the gas pedal which makes the car lurch back a few feet.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry--”

“No!”

He doesn’t even have to think about it, doesn’t even need to process the thought at all. The word leaves Yancy’s lips as a harsh shout, and he’s already moving, already putting himself between his brother and running. It’s a simple decision, really: allowing Raleigh to leave results in his brother’s death. No matter how much Yancy might hate himself, no matter how much he might think he’s failed already, this…

He’ll have become less than worthless, less than a failure. Everything he’ll have ever wanted will be ash.

Besides, a world without Raleigh in it wouldn’t be a world worth living in anymore.

So Yancy faces the red tail lights as they approach him, faces them with a certainty that, if they don’t stop, then it doesn’t matter if the impact kills him or not: he’ll already be dead. Faces them with a strange sort of calm overtaking him, a calm that blots out all the turmoil, all the panic and terror and despair, and leaves him feeling...nothing. Just...calm. He might’ve failed in everything else, but in this moment at least, he knows he’s done everything he can.

And it is a cold, harrowing victory. Because as much as his brother wants to escape, he would never hit Yancy with a car. And seeing Yancy in the rearview mirror, stubbornly standing there ready to accept the tail end, is enough to pull the cords from Raleigh’s sails and release the insane, nervous wind that has been propelling him. A toxic cocktail of hurt and loss and release, drugs to take you up and drink to put you down and the cold blade of rejection through it all.

Raleigh slams the brakes and turns the car back off. The engine silences and he leans forward, head against the airbag as he sobs.

"Just let me go!" He cries, fists slamming the wheel a few times. His plea pregnant with so many contradictory sentiments. _Please save me._ _Please don't let me do this. Help me._

Yancy wants for a second or two after the engine cuts out to move back to the driver’s side. Catches sight of his brother inside the car, doesn’t see him respond to Yancy’s presence. Slowly, almost as if afraid of frightening the kid, he reaches out and curls his fingers around the door handle. Steels himself for the shit-show that this is likely to become.

The sound of his brother’s crying when he opens the door is like a physical blow ( _my fault my fault all my fault I’m sorry Rals my fault my fau_ —), and Yancy flings the door open the rest of the way, everything else be damned. Practically jumps into the car, his phone falling into the passenger’s seat (probably) as he wraps Raleigh in a tight hug. Kisses the top of his brother’s head.

Wanting his brother, wanting to do unspeakable things to his brother? Those are things that terrify him, things that make something ugly and sharp writhe in his belly.

Taking care of Raleigh when he needs it, holding his hand to guide him through the pain? Those are things that make sense. Those are things that are easy. Those are things that Yancy can do as easily as breathing.

“It’s okay, Rals. S’gonna be okay. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

His breath ruffles the blond hair beneath his chin, beneath his lips.

“I’ve got you kiddo. We—” he swallows, “we’ll figure it out. But you’re not gonna lose me. Not ever.”

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I ruined everything," Raleigh cries. He doesn't think about the fact that Yancy is practically _on_ him, he just accepts it and curls into his embrace like he does whenever the world turns into a shit show. Only this time he doesn't know how it’s going to work out and the words pour from his lips between tears and ragged, heaving breaths. "I should never have said anything. I should never have replied to that forum post! How can that be you?! Nothing is gonna be alright, this can't be fixed!"

“No, Rals, you didn’t ruin anything, it wasn’t you,” Yancy whispers, his arm rotating so that he’s still holding on to his brother but also running his fingers through his hair. It’s something the kid’s liked—or, at least, he’s _seemed_ to like it—since he was little. And, okay, maybe it’s one of Yancy’s default comfort mechanisms.

“You didn’t ruin anything,” he reiterates, the ‘ _it was me_ ’ going unsaid. Yancy ignores the way he can feel his brother’s tears soaking through his shirt, how he can feel the warmth of Raleigh’s shuddering breaths as they alternatingly heat and cool the thin material. Instead focuses on the the warmth of his brother’s body soaking into his bones through the single layer of cloth between them. Focuses on sliding his other hand up and down his brother’s side, not caring how intimate the motion might seem because _Raleigh needs him right now_.

“Well, okay, you did ruin the apartment,” though he tries for levity, Yancy regrets it an instant later as he backpedals, “b-but we can fix that. Besides, that’s not the point. The point is that—”

Stops because...fuck. He has so many things he wants to say. So many words he wants to use to make it all better. Words like “we’re gonna be fine” and “we can make this work” and “just give it time, it’ll go back to normal.” But they’re all lies. At least, he can’t say them without them feeling like lies. So he says the only thing that feels _right_.

“The point is that we’re gonna get through this, Rals,” Yancy barely lets himself whisper, so fragile are these words, so fragile is their meaning and promise. “We’re gonna get through this like we always have, and we’re gonna do it together.”

A breath. Then,

“And, sure, it was me you answered, but that’s just because anything we do, we apparently have to do it together, right?”

More joking. He wants to punch himself and yet, what else can he do? However, another thought occurs to him, and Yancy feels the small grin that’d been creeping onto his face fall away.

“Besides, if you hadn’t messaged me...I might’ve just lost you. You might’ve left and—”

And that. _That_. Is where he stops. Because he can’t—absolutely can _not_ —even finish that sentence, let alone the thought. Just stops moving his hands for a moment, gripping Raleigh even tighter before he goes back to petting his brother like a frightened puppy.

"You would have lost me already."

When Raleigh speaks it's a coarse whisper. He shouldn't say that but its true. He's been so close to doing stupid things. So close. But he couldn't ever quite get there because there had been the hope that everything would work out and quietly go away. That was gone now but Yancy was here when it really mattered. Still here. Still promising the same things he always does.

“If I was gonna.. Would have been done by now. That guy- he. You. Thanks.."

He can't meet his brother's eyes. Can't admit or articulate just how deep it all goes but somehow he thinks Yancy knows.

"Yancy, I'm in love with you." It sounds so bizarre. This secret. This terrible secret with a terrible truth and a terrible outcome. The voice is shaky but the words are true, a strange sort of resignation seeping through Raleigh’s body. 

"I'm actually..honest to god buy a house and get married and have a dog in love with you. I'm not confused. I'm not just-- I think it’s past pervert at this point but there's nothing I can do about it. I've tried and..and."

An exhale.

"I'm just having a hard time seeing any happy ending scenario, here. Especially as you.. Well, you said it back. You can't take it back because you said it. And you can’t ask me to."

He's curling back into him, now, forehead against the dip between Yancy's collar bones and he savors the gentle hand in his hair. .

"I.. You didn't do this to me. I did this. I did this to me and now us and.." It trails off in a sort of whine. He's going in circles.

"I'm in love with you. I don't want anyone else."

Yancy just breathes as his brother’s words trickle over him. He wants so badly for it to be true, to just be able to _believe_ , to, more than anything, give Raleigh that happy ending he’d— _they’d_ —talked about.

( _move to the middle of nowhere and raise pugs or something._ )

( _Maybe we should start looking for a place for our dog farm._ )

But…

“I-I-I,” breathe in, breathe out, “I love you too, Rals. I’m _in_ love with you, too.” There, he’s said it, plain and simple and, yes, undeniable.

 _But_ …

“...but how can I ever—I can’t just—” he wants to throw his hands in the air in frustration, in anger, wants to rip his own skin from his body to expose his guilt, “—how can I _know_ , though? That I didn’t do this to you? I-I can’t just stop thinking that. I’m sorry I don’t know how—”

Neck craning, Yancy bumps his forehead against Raleigh’s. Well, against the side of his brother’s forehead. He can feel tears in his eyes again, refuses to let them spill. This isn’t about him. Not really. His voice still comes out sounding mangled, though.

“I don’t know if I can ever make myself completely believe it. Or let myself—” _corrupt you, hurt you, twist you, make you more like me_.  He shakes his head.

“I _can’t_ Rals. I can’t risk you like that. You could have so much m—” his voice quavers even more no matter how strong he’s trying to make it, his arms following suit where they’ve stopped moving, still wrapped around his brother, “I-I _can’t_.”

“Why not!?” His brother demands, pulling back enough to look him in the face, tear stained and blotchy as he is. Raleigh smooths shaking hands up Yancy’s side and shoulder, twisting to get as close as possible which is damn near impossible in a car but that doesn’t stop him from trying.

“You don’t control me, Yancy. You’re not my boss. These are my feelings that I got all on my own. Why can’t you believe this? You want me, don’t you?!”

Desperation. It’s desperation in his voice. Confusion. Exhaustion. “Why can’t you even try?!”

The sight of his brother’s distress, so plain, so close, nearly undoes Yancy. He has to suck in a breath to keep himself from falling apart under that gaze.

“I _can’t_ , Rals, it’s—” A million reasons flash through his mind, all reasons he’s given before: it’s wrong, I’m your older brother, you could do so much better, what would Mom think...and on and on and on they circle and whirl, swirling into a vortex that sucks Yancy down, down, down. Down past the cover, the _excuse_ , each reason is, all of them layered over something much deeper. Something Yancy is hurtling towards whether he likes it or not. When he reaches the bottom, he realizes he’s shaking, that his eyes are squeezed shut even as tears run hot down his face. When he finally does speak, his voice is barely above a whisper.

“I’m—”

His shaking increases in force, and he can’t— _can’t_ —open his eyes. Because this is it. This is the truth, the keystone of everything. Yancy’s exhausted both physically and emotionally, his nerves overwrought and his defenses crumbled to dust, and the words are finally able to come out on their own. Words he’s hardly able to let himself _think_ , let alone say.

“I’m scared.”

Its a breath. A breath of a whisper of a cold, vicious realisation. And this is a tipping point. Its the part where they climb out of the car and go inside and put this behind them.

But that isn't what happens. Raleigh can feel the fear thrum through him. The anxiety, the million other things that don't make sense and yet-- and yet they make perfect sense. And that is the problem. But it doesn't keep him from moving a shaking hand up to card through Yancy's hair. Hold him in the stillness of sunrise.

"Me too."

Terrified. But it only brings their faces closer together, eyes wide and wanting, begging as they flick across his older brother's face. Lips but a breath apart.

And then, in an instant, they aren't, anymore. They're softly brushing, electric sparks between them.

Yancy wants to revel in the feeling of Raleigh’s lips on his, wants to just surrender to the beautiful feelings coursing through his body from that one simple, practically-chaste touch. Wants...wants _everything_.

But then that hot, sick feeling he’s become so used to crawls up his throat, and he knows it now, knows what it is. It’s not disgust, or hatred, or any of those things.

It’s fear.

What if he fucks up his brother even worse than he has already? What if this breaks them, tears them apart, and they can’t stand to be near one another anymore? What if Raleigh never forgives him for this? What if they try but then it doesn’t work out?

What if he loses his brother?

Too many what if’s.

Too much fear.

Yancy turns his head, opening his eyes as he does, and tries not to whimper from the loss. He’s pretty sure he fails.

He’s such a fucking coward.

“I—” he can’t speak, can barely fucking _breathe_ , “Rals, please, I’m—” _scared,_ terrified _, not worthy of being your brother_ , “—I can’t lose you.”

He knows the thought probably doesn’t make sense outside the convoluted logic of his own mind, so he breathes out in a rush, “What if I—”

That’s as far as he gets, though, the fear strangling him, leaving him gagging on air, not even his brother’s hands on his side enough to warm the cold that grips him.

"You won't," Raleigh interjects. The hand he's got in Yancy's hair slides down to cup his cheek, thumb brushing at the tears still wet on his face.

"I want this. We'll figure it out."

All Yancy can do is shake his head, voice cut off, even as he leans into his brother’s touch.

He wants. Holy fuck but he _wants_. He wants to believe his brother. Wants to believe this will be okay. Wants to believe that he hasn’t somehow twisted and corrupted Raleigh into feeling this way. Wants _Raleigh_. Wants his baby brother spread out beneath him, on top of him, beside him—fuck, it doesn’t matter—panting his name, begging for him, making _him_ beg—

The shivers that slide along his spine have nothing to do with the temperature.

He can’t take the first step. He doesn’t know if he’ll _ever_ be able to, really. He can’t close that distance between them. Can’t let his grip on Raleigh’s side become something more. Can’t allow himself to—

Can’t do anything.

And, for Yancy, always trying to help his brother, always trying his best to be useful, to be able to fix what’s broken, it’s terrifying. Fear has dominated his life for eight years. Fear of failure, fear of not being enough, and this. This fear that he’ll make his brother into him. That he’ll break what he could never survive being broken. All his life, though, he’s fought his fears, faced them one way or another and beaten them—or, at the very least, learned to live with them.

In this, though, it’s too much. He can’t face this. Can’t beat it. Can’t live with it. This fear swallows him up and grinds him down into nothing, into _less_ than nothing, and spits him back out into a world, a possible reality, where he’s alone and frightened all the time. A world where his reason to overcome his fears has left him.

He can’t do it.

All Yancy can do is shake his head and try, _try_ to communicate all of this to his brother without words. The only sliver of hope he has left is Raleigh, and Raleigh’s never let him down before.

Maybe...maybe it will be enough. And Raleigh is a smart kid. Not genius but he can read people. And of all people he can read his brother.

He sees the fear. The crippling, paralysing dread that locks Yancy in place and keeps him from acting. He sees it. And again he sees the gap in strength. Yancy can't do this, not that he won't.

But Raleigh will. He has, already, and he will do again. Yancy doesn't have the freedom. Raleigh can make the leap for them both.

"Yancy," he says against his lips, still not letting him go. Still insistent, reliant on the contact. He feels a shift in him, a power growing deep in his belly. If he wants this he has to take it.

"You're it for me, don't you get that? What do you care about anything else. What do you need for me to prove it to you? You want me. You said it, you want me. Don't you dare pretend otherwise."

"I..." The fear is nearly as overwhelming as the want, the base _need_ , that rips through Yancy's body. Because he can't. He can't pretend. He can't lie to Raleigh now, now that they're here, that they've laid themselves bare to one another. So he nods.

But he still can't take that first, damning step. Still can't give Raleigh what he wants—what he _needs_. Any time he even considers it, his stomach turns to water and his spine freezes, his lungs shuddering at the cold. Frustration wells up in him, burning hot to the cold fear.

"But I-I don't know. I don't _know_ what you have to do. I don't know that anything will ever be enough. I-I'm _sorry_ , Raleigh," his eyes burn; fuck, crying this much hurts, "I'm sorry I-I-I don't know what else to tell you."

“Yancy, listen to me.” His brother says, stopping Yancy from damning himself any more. It’s strange the feeling settling in his chest and gut. A sort of quiet strength that rises from his sorrow. That needed the destruction before it could make itself present. Yancy is weak right now. Raleigh isn’t. And he looks Yancy straight in the eye.

“Do you trust me?”

"Yes."

There's not even a delay in Yancy's response, because, does he trust Raleigh?

With anything. With _everything_. It's never even been a question.

"Always."

“So trust me now.” Raleigh says, pulling him into another kiss. Warm and plush, tongue darting out to lick into his brother’s mouth before pulling back again. “I’ve got this. I’ve got you,” He promises between kisses. The power in his chest is blooming as he slides into the metaphorical driver’s seat.

“Yancy,” He breathes. “I’m an adult. This is my decision. I’m calling the shots.”

Yancy's entire body freezes, goes completely rigid, at his brother's words.

 _Trust me now_.

There is a war in his mind, two ideas and ideals that are buried deep, deep, deep inside of him tearing at one another, ripping, tearing, chunks of himself and each other away. He whimpers softly, feels his entire body start shaking, limbs quivering where they're gripping his brother, and—

And then Raleigh's kissing him, soft, gentle, exploratory, like a _lover_ , and the war is over. He's still shaking, still whimpering, but Yancy can no longer tell if it's from fear or from need. When Raleigh pulls back for a moment, Yancy's neck cranes, trying to chase those lips down again.

He doesn't have to wait long.

Raleigh's words roll over him as they kiss again, and again, and again, and he still can't tell why he's shaking.

"I," a breath, "I trust you."

As soon as the words leave his lips, it's like a weight has been lifted from Yancy's shoulder, from his chest, from...everything.

"I trust you, Rals."

Raleigh smiles, something warm rising up and replacing the void in his chest. Mixing with the strength and spreading throughout his limbs and he grins before drawing Yancy back to kiss him again. Slow. Tender. This is it. He’s finally got what he wants. What they want. He cant believe it’s worked out like this. It’s all so surreal.

“You wanna go back in?” He asks when the kiss breaks, impossibly pink lips plush against his brother’s. “Sun’s coming up.”

It feels like a dream. Like none of the terrible, horrible things that have just happened are real.

The meaning behind his brother’s words is obvious, is _right there_ , quite literally in his face. Yancy accepts the kiss, still can’t bring himself to reciprocate more than what’s absolutely required to make it a kiss instead of an attempted, one-sided kiss, and feels the trembling in his body increase in strength. He feels like he’s being pulled in two directions at once, like he’s simultaneously soaring up into the clouds and plummeting towards the ground. He can see the sky tingeing pink at the edges from the corner of his vision, and his limbs shake harder still as exhaustion tries to overwhelm him.

He still wants to say no. Still wants to say _I can’t_ , to remind Raleigh of all the reasons this is a stupid, horrible, _terrible_ idea. There’s still a part of him that’s yelling, _screaming_ at him that he’s taking advantage of his brother, that no matter what Raleigh says he can never know for certain. But…

But he wants this.

Drawing in a shuddering breath, Yancy leans his head forward until he’s nosing at Raleigh’s neck, nodding. Breathes out in a rush before inhaling again, the scent of his brother filling his nose—

Along with smells he doesn’t recognize. Other people, maybe, from the party. Their sweat, their limbs, their—

Yancy feels the muscles of his body tense as the last thought ( _their release_ ) filters through his mind, sending a pulse of heat— _jealousy_ , he realizes with a start—down his spine to pool in his stomach. He thinks he might be humming lowly as he wraps his arms, _firmly_ , around his brother’s shoulders, nosing at the point where neck meets shoulder and collarbone, trying to wipe away everything but the thing he identifies as _Raleigh_. And Raleigh let's him. There is nothing but acceptance and encouragement as he tips his head to the side. Closes his eyes and leans into Yancy’s every touch with a soft sigh of relief.

The car is cramped and their position awkward and uncomfortable but Raleigh doesn’t care. He doesn’t have a care in the world right now. Amazing how everything can change in the space of a breath. Yancy’s breath against him draws a shiver, goosebumps rising on his arms and legs, face turning to mouth at whatever skin he can get at. Neck, shoulder,  hands dropping from Yancy’s face to run the planes of his shoulders and sides. Smooth, focused. Like you would a lover. And thinking that, doing it and _thinking_ it sends waves of exhilaration (albeit slightly anxious). There is a part of him that questions this, of course there is. There is a part of his common sense screaming no, but this is literally the best end scenario. He’s still reeling from the revelation of their emails but actually? Is it not for the best? And is it not almost kismet that the one person they might find online to share their troubles would be the one they were writing about. This. This is what he’s wanted. This is what he’s _always_ wanted. And getting it…he doesn’t know what the feelings in him are anymore but it’s fantastic. There’s a gravity, here. It feels, and he says this not having much faith in a higher power, fated. That there is no other answer.

The same realization is washing over Yancy now, his mind having had time to process. Of all the possible people he could’ve been messaged by, _of course_ it would be Raleigh, and of _course_ they would feel the same. They have always been Raleigh and Yancy. Yancy and Raleigh. They have done everything together for their entire lives. They have _endured_ everything that life has thrown at them together.

Why should this be any different?

There is still a part of him, a very strong part, that refuses to quiet, refuses to accept what his brother is telling him, is offering him with the slight turning of his head that further exposes his neck to Yancy’s touch. That part is screaming at him that he needs to back up, needs to get _out_ , needs to stop this before it goes too far.

He can’t stop that voice. No matter what he does, no matter how he tries to rationalize this or listen to what Raleigh tells him, he can’t...he can’t make it stop. He’s not strong enough. Raleigh has always seemed to think he’s indestructible, that he can do anything—hell, as a kid he’d apparently asked their mom when it would  be his turn to be a superhero like Yancy; to be fair, he’d been three—but the truth is that Yancy’s just human. Even worse, he’s weak.

In this, he is weak.

So even as Raleigh’s hands chase shivers up and down his side, as he breathes his brother in deeper, as he shivers with barely-repressed need, he can’t go further. He wants to dart his tongue out, his lips, to taste and kiss and suck the skin beneath him, to mark up his brother’s body as _his_ and his alone, to show the world that Raleigh doesn’t belong to those other assholes who are still lingering on his skin.

But he can’t.

Even though he knows how Raleigh feels about him ( _He is my other half in every way_ ), even though Raleigh knows how Yancy feels ( _I want to grab him and hold him and tell him everything—all of it—so badly that it hurts_ ), both of them more intimately than either of them could’ve ever predicted or realized, Yancy...can’t. It fucking hurts no matter what he does, whether he gives in and slices up his own innards with guilt or he doesn’t give in and carves up his brother’s heart. And, any pain Raleigh endures, Yancy always endures, almost sympathetically.

No matter what he does, he loses.

He can’t move.

He can’t _choose_. He feels like he’s at some sort of tipping point, and even the most gentle of nudges will send him hurtling in one direction or another.

So he hangs on the precipice, panting into his brother’s neck, entire body vibrating, and waits for the push.

And you’d think that everything Raleigh has already done would be enough. You’d think that this was already past the tipping point. Apparently not. Because Yancy was still trying to be the good one. The responsible caregiver, think for the both of them. But Raleigh had already said that Yancy was no longer in control. He supposes the hesitance is him still needing more proof. And so Raleigh turns and lays a trail of kisses along Yancy’s neck from the crook of his shoulder to the junction of his jaw and ear. Each one slow and tender before he gently bites and lathes away the marks with his tongue. Something he’s longed to do for as long as he was aware of the action.

“Yancy,” he breathes, tightening his grip on his brother’s side. “Bring me inside.”

Yancy shudders at the lines of sensation Raleigh draws down his neck, hands coming down to grip harshly at the kid’s bare sides, feels the muscles rippling under the skin there. Allows himself to linger for just a moment before a spike of guilt shoots through him and he continues moving.

Raleigh’s _words_ , though. The meaning in them is as clear as it was before. And even though Yancy’s already half-hard in his jeans, the authority, the _command_ in Raleigh’s tone makes him so hard so quickly he almost faints.

And, head still spinning with sensations and feelings and surprise and fuck knows what else, Yancy nods his head, whispering a soft, “Okay, Rals. Okay.”

He doesn’t remember climbing out of the car, but he does remember holding out his hand to his brother, the other holding the door propped open. He remembers feeling his jeans constricting his dick, guesses it’s probably making an obscene tent in the dark material. Remembers watching the new day strike his brother’s body like a flame, painting him in shades of reds and yellows and pinks and oranges and making him look so fucking _gorgeous_ that it’s all Yancy can do to not get down on his knees and worship the deity that Raleigh so clearly is.

“God, you’re...beautiful.”

He _doesn’t_ remember telling his mouth it was okay to speak, but he knows he says the words, and he knows he starts blushing a deep scarlet immediately afterwards. But he keeps his stance, keeps standing straight and standing by what he’d said, because he’s not lying. He’s not exaggerating. If Raleigh questions it, says anything about it that isn’t acceptance, Yancy’s going to...he’s not sure, actually. But he’ll do something.

He might fail at countless things, but he will never, _ever_ fail Raleigh. Never leave his brother to feel less than he is. Not if Yancy can help it. And Raleigh climbs out after him, leaves the car right where it is awkwardly pulled out far enough to be a nuisance to their neighbors. He stands and brushes bloody knuckles on his jeans.

Beautiful. He isn’t sure he feels beautiful..but right now he feels strong. And strength is born of beauty, too. It’s funny, Yancy has no idea how gorgeous he is. He just..doesn’t see it. And that is endlessly flummoxing but Raleigh figures he can do something about that, now. Really do something.

And then he’s moving, taking Yancy’s hand and pulling past him back towards the apartment. _Runs in the family_ , he thinks, but doesn’t dare spook his brother. It’s too soon. Hell, he’d probably spook himself. It is in his odd sense of quiet control that he slinks up and then past his brother. Leads him back through their door and ruined living room. Leads them right down the hall with a vicious saunter. A smirk plays at his lips the further they get.

“Your place or mine?”

Yancy plays the question over in his mind, doing his best to block out the sight of the destruction that is their living room even as the images try to dance behind his eyelids. He’s been trying to surreptitiously check Raleigh for injuries, but other than the bloody knuckles he can’t find anything other than scratches.

He’ll take care of those later. After he decides.

It’s not a hard decision, though. He swallows and says, “Yours,” with as much strength as he can muster. The thought of them doing anything in Yancy’s room, in a space that belongs to him, is…

“Yeah, definitely yours.”

Raleigh’s smirk grows wider and he opens the door, leading them into darkness. The sun is creeping through the blinds and he doesn’t see a reason to turn on the lights. It’s funny, he thinks. This is hardly his room right now. It’s almost like he left and has come back a completely different person. The events of the last few hours has been, without a doubt, absolutely lifechanging. Maybe the most in his entire life besides the loss of their parents.

But this feels good. Exciting. Natural. He doesn’t let himself over think it. He doesn’t let himself think about anything at all. Thinking was never his strong suit. Why start now. Instead he focuses on the here and now, pivoting and closing the door behind them. Dropping his jacket to the floor before closing the distance between them with a heated kiss, hands at Yancy’s hips, walking them back towards the bed.

“Mine.” He growls. Something deep and possessive but also smooth and thick as syrup. He asked for the reins and Yancy gave them to him. Like hell he’s going to give them back now. They need this. And now it’s started there’s no reason to stop. No harsh reality of the world to contend with. Not yet. Right now it’s just them. Just them in all the world and nothing, no one else.

Yancy lets himself be steered back towards the bed, lets out a soft cry that his brother swallows down when his knees collide with the back of his bed and they fall back—or, he supposes, in Raleigh’s case, forward—into a heap on the sheets. He can feel Raleigh’s entire weight stretched out on top of him and it is _glorious_ , so much better than he ever could’ve possibly thought it would feel. He can feel every line of Raleigh’s body, every muscle writhing against him, pushing him down into the mattress as he feels a tongue push past his lips. He accepts the intrusion with a moan, trying to tamp down on the negativity inside of him, because this...

This is terrifying.

This is _exhilarating_.

This is the best fucking thing he’s ever experienced.

This is what Raleigh wants. This is what Raleigh _needs_.

...This is what Yancy needs, too.

He spreads his legs wider, moaning loudly as he feels his brother’s body press almost impossibly closer to him, and holds on as his brother slots effortlessly into the negative space of Yancy’s body.

Long limbs and tight muscle rolling and pressing as to encompass every inch of him. Raleigh keeps their lips connected, broken only by desperate breaths and little, wanton moans. Years of longing and anticipation make coming together almost effortless. Movements practiced in hours of darkness over and over again.

Raleigh moves to better position himself so that the swell of his cock presses against Yancy’s thigh. He gives a little gasp, followed by a whine at the press before giving in completely and grinding against him. Starving for it. Shivers work their way up his body, electric sparks in every nerve that clamber together and race up his spine to wash through his dizzy head. The world is spinning. And sure, he might still be a little high and every touch twice as well received, but he isn’t about to complain about the intense, deep connection every touch twists deeper, weaves stronger between them.

Yancy's head is spinning, too, and though he knows he isn't, he _feels_ high. Drunk. Completely _wrecked_. Off of Raleigh. Off of his brother. Off of what his brother is doing to him.

The moment Raleigh grinds down on him, wanton whine filling Yancy's mouth, steely brand of his cock against Yancy's thigh, something in Yancy snaps. He can almost feel it as a physical sensation, as something tangible in his skull cracking and giving way with a dry, elastic sound.

Maybe something is broken forever.

Or maybe something is fixed.

The voice, the one saying he'll never be certain, never truly believe that Raleigh isn't this way because of him, shuts up. Goes away. Jumps off a fucking cliff with sharp rocks at the bottom. Screams in defiance for a terrible half-second before...falling silent.

Yancy's hips buck up into his brother's hips, and he lets out a noise—jesus _fuck_ , even he didn't know he could sound that obscene—before he leans back, breaking their kiss, grabs his brother in a bruising grip, and flips them over. He doesn't wait, doesn't waste a single moment, before he's leaning down to run his tongue over every inch of Raleigh's exposed flesh. Leaves a trail of saliva in every valley between every mound of muscle, licking up the dried sweat there, before latching on to one of Raleigh's nipples and _sucking_ , worrying the nub with his lips and tongue.

He's not particularly good at it, he's sure. It's not like he has a wealth of experience he's drawing on. But he tries his best, angling his body almost awkwardly until he's got their clothed cocks lined up and grinding them together in one, single thrust as he latches on to his brother's nipple with his teeth.

He nearly comes right then and there. He can feel Raleigh's dick— _his brother's dick_ —hard and aching against his own. Can feel the damn thing _throb_ through four fucking layers of clothes and _jesus_ Yancy knew his brother was larger than average but _fuck_ he takes back all those jokes about his brother's 'monster cock' because this isn't a fucking joke this is not a drill I repeat this is not a drill.

He arches his back, pulling himself away from Raleigh's chest as he simultaneously increases the pressure of their dicks against one another.

"F- _fuck_ , Raleigh," he can barely manage to gasp, let alone talk, "holy _shit_ little bro, I—"

He cuts himself off, thrusting again and moaning loudly, only to lean forward and sink his teeth into the meat of Raleigh's shoulder. Sucking. Licking. _Marking_ his brother where only they'll know. And Raleigh, for his part, is just as fevered. Gasping and whining under Yancy's lips and teeth, fingers curling into whatever he can scramble to reach, short, shallow breaths keeping from hyperventilating.

"That's it-" he gasps, arching up under his brother. "Jesus, Yance just- yeah- just like that!"

Raleigh realises in a heartbeat that he has a hell of a lot more experience in all this, and the thought that chases that nearly has him thrown over the edge.

_I'm his first. I'm his only- (only ever, he's mine)._

It makes him shiver and moan and raise his hands into Yancy's hair as his brother marks him. In the low light they are illuminated by the first colors of dawn and it is beautiful.

"I'm your first." He says, unable to withhold the possession and glee in his voice. Wide pupils just visible. Plush lips kiss stung but ready for more.

Something slithers through Yancy's veins at the words, something hot, molten, searing him from the inside out. Because, okay, he's had sex before. Just. Not...with...a guy. He's made out with a guy, maybe two, if only to make sure that his attraction to the male species wasn't just limited to Raleigh, but that's...about it. Still, it's not like he hadn't—

"Tried. Once before," he gasps between thrusts of their hips, lips resting against the mark he's made as the truth just spills out of him, "but— _nggh_ —but didn't get anywhere. Wasn't y— _fuck_ —wasn't you. Couldn't do it."

He lathes his tongue over the mark, nips and sucks lightly at it until it’s already turning a delicious shade of dark red. Blows on it where it’s still spit-slick and shiny before leaning down to make another, this one right over Raleigh’s heart. Feels his face burning with the truth of his admission, but tries to lean so that his flushed cheeks are hidden from his brother’s view, never mind that his ears are on fire.

"Then I'm your first," Raleigh confirms, arching harder, gasping under his brother's mouth. "I'll show you everything.  Let me teach you."

Its then he relinquishes his grasp to slide down Yancy's sides and hook his thumbs into his waistband, shoving at the fabric like it's personally offensive.

"I saw you yesterday," he says. "In the shower. Had me jerking off in here like a teenager."

“ _Fuck_ ,” Yancy bites harder than he’d meant to, feels the skin beneath his teeth stress, dimpling but not breaking. He bathes it with his tongue in apology, panting through his nose and mouth at the thought of Raleigh seeing  him—and, _fuck_ , he’d been so worried about that—and getting off on it, right here, right where he’s got his brother pinned—

The moan that works its way from his throat, that coats Raleigh’s skin beneath him, is low and throaty, the only truly coherent noise Yancy can make. He has the presence of mind to wriggle his hips, to give Raleigh access—to give Raleigh _everything_ —and hisses as the material of his underwear catches on the curve of his dick. Once it’s out of the way, though, he hisses again at the roughness of his brother’s jeans against his exposed flesh.

“I... _fuck_.” He can’t say anything else, can scarcely _think_ of anything else.

He’s about to be naked—well, naked from the waist down—with Raleigh. With _his brother_.

And he’s not freaking out. He totally isn’t. Nope. No sir. That’s not him practically hyperventilating. Or nearly coming at the very thought of being this close to his brother.

Nope. No way. What is he, a blushing virgin or something?

His shaking gets so bad that he can barely keep himself propped up over his brother, and he whines into Raleigh’s skin as he collapses on top of his brother. Distantly, he finds himself thinking that their clothed and unclothed halves complement one another as Yancy tries to keep himself from crushing Raleigh, arms shaking but not from exertion. His new position puts his face against the side of Raleigh’s neck, and Yancy cranes his head back to breathe hotly against his brother’s ear.

“Rals, I—”

"Shh, I've got you. I've got you."

“I—”

He feels like he’s hurtling towards the ground, like no matter what he does he’s being drawn inexorably forward and down, down, down. Yancy draws in a shuddering breath, squeezes his eyes shut and ignores the warmth he can feel gathering at their corners because, _no_ , he refuses to—

Too late. The warmth leaps from his eyes and slides down his face, down his cheeks and into the creases on either side of his nose. Over the rim of his lips before dropping onto his brother beneath him.

Shuddering, Yancy buries his face in Raleigh’s neck again. He hasn’t even come, hasn’t done anything or had anything much done to him, and already he’s completely gone, completely wrung-out and desperate. New tears join the first, these simply getting stuck between their skin. No

“I’m sorry, I don’t know—”

 _What do to. Why I’m crying. Why I’m doing this. Why we’re like this. What I did_ —

All these words and more get stuck in Yancy’s throat, and instead he just makes a shuddering sound into his brother’s ear. Grinds himself against Raleigh’s still-clothed crotch, trying to chase the tears away with something, _anything_ else.

"Yance.." Raleigh says quietly, working his lips over naked skin, wiggling his own trousers down to expose himself.

"I've got you."

Just let it happen. He's here. He's right here, arching and now naked against him.

"I will never drop you."

The moment his flesh touches Raleigh’s, it’s like a fucking explosion under Yancy’s skin, in his mind. His body’s shaking takes on a new pitch, almost as if he’s fucking _vibrating_ , and his hips piston themselves up and down as if they’re possessed. That’s _Raleigh’s cock_ , Raleigh’s hard cock against his own, grinding against him as they both chase their release together, _together_ , _with one another_. Yancy’s hips stutter at that thought, his entire body lighting up as if shocked, and he gasps.

The tears haven’t stopped, still a warm coolness on his face, and Raleigh’s zipper is dragging against his leg. The kid hasn’t even managed to get his pants off all the way, and Yancy’s rutting against him like his  life depends on it. Fuck, maybe it does. He feels like if they stop now he’s going to fucking implode, all the emotions, all the desire and want and need, welling up in his chest an almost-tangible weight.

“Raleigh,” he pants, feels waves of tension swirling down his body, centering on his cock, feels himself swelling. Time seems to slow as his brain kicks into overdrive, focusing on every detail at once: the slip-slide of his precome coating both of them, his brother’s pulse pounding through the contact between them, the velvety-rough texture of Raleigh’s cock as it slides over the flared ridge of Yancy’s head, the taste of the skin beneath Yancy’s tongue, the way the muscles he’s dreamed of for years—fucking _years_ —tense and relax and flutter under his hands. “Rals, I’m gonna—”

And he is. Yancy doesn’t even have it in him to be embarrassed because _holy shit_ he’s there, _right there_ , all it’ll take is a small push, something, _anything_ , and he’s going to—

"Come," Raleigh fills in. Half supplying half explaining. Definitely daring  "C'mon, man. All over me, right now." Its almost begging, definitely encouraging. "Was hoping you'd fuck me, but there's always later."

Yancy’s gone. He’s so fucking gone. Forget being tossed over the edge or anything like that. Fuck that shit. Yancy feels like he’s been shot out of a fucking canon and into fucking space. Feels like his entire body is being squeezed down to shoot out of his dick as he arches up, grinding down into Raleigh and emptying himself between them. He comes so hard that he hits himself in the chin, that it arcs onto his brother’s cheek, that he ruins his shirt and coats Raleigh’s stomach and dick with the last few dribbles.

Throughout the whole thing, he has no idea what sort of noise he’s making, but Yancy can feel his throat vibrating. Imagines he might be screaming. Hopes with a strange kind of desperation that the shapes he can feel his mouth making aren’t his brother’s name, because _fuck_ that’d be so goddamn embarrassing.

His arms give out, his weight settling on his brother—although collapsing might be a better word for it—as his bones abruptly disappear.

"I've got you, I've got you," he says, running his fingers through Yancy's hair, grinding up against him with a soft smile. "It's okay. You're okay."

Raleigh is petting him at this point but he's still moving up under him. Gasping as he does, little noises making their way out as he presses kisses to any part of his brother he can. Sticky heat between them. On him. His face and chest and that... Well fuck that's hot. Raleigh would happily spend his life covered in Yancy. Fully intends on it.

He slides a hand down to cup his brother's gorgeous ass, humming his approval.

"Wanna help me out a little?"

Yancy had been breathing steadily, making little noises of overstimulation as Raleigh continues to grind into him in a slow, steady rhythm, but his breath freezes in his chest when his brother speaks again, and not even the heat of Raleigh’s hands in his hair, on his skin is enough to thaw it. He makes a soft noise that sounds to his ears like a squeak before clearing his throat.

“I, uh—” He has no idea what to do. None. None at all. He swallows as he picks himself up to look at his brother beneath him, face scrunching up when his shirt sticks awkwardly to both of them. His bones have apparently reappeared, because he props himself up with one hand while the other awkwardly tries to pull his shirt over his head. After a moment’s fumbling, he succeeds, and Raleigh is looking up at him with...god. Yancy doesn’t even have the vocabulary to describe it. Love, trust, lust, need, adoration...all of it rolled into something he can’t even begin to explain. Something that feels wrong being directed at him, yet heats his very core until he can breathe again and...and something, something deep and hidden, something he’d thought was gone, some kernel of resistance he’d been holding on to, cracks down the middle before dissolving in glittering fragments.

He can’t deny that gaze. Can’t fight it. Can’t argue with _that_. Everything in his mind crystallizes, turns sharp and bright and perfectly arrayed so that he can finally, _finally_ see.

This is Raleigh. This is his little brother. His little brother he’s spent the last third of his life fighting to protect from the world. His little brother who has always been the center of his own world. His little brother who has always idolized him, who has stuck by Yancy’s side even when he didn’t have to.

He could’ve never altered this outcome even if he wanted to. Maybe it’s selfish, but ( _I’d make it so that he loved me_ ) Yancy wouldn’t change this for anything. They’ve been hurtling towards this point for their entire lives. They’re like two stars winding about one another in the heavens, inexorably drawn together by their shared gravity, eventually colliding in an explosion that shatters the cosmos. There has never been any stopping this, any getting in the way of the inevitable, and the force of their collision has always been fated to be something unstoppable, something that can’t be contained or controlled, that continues to paint the sky with their light for an eternity afterward.

So Yancy gives his brother what he needs. What he wants. What _both_ of them want.

He uses his free hand to wipe his own release off of Raleigh’s cheek, gathering up more of it from the kid’s stomach, before he wraps his now-wettened hand around his brother. He’s not sure where the idea comes from, but it just feels...right.

If he’d thought that having Raleigh’s cock bare against his own was good, the feel of it in his hand, the weight of it, how it’s pulsing in his hand in time with the heartbeat he can see in his brother’s neck...it’s like a dream come true. Hell, it _is_ a dream come true. He gives an experimental stroke, mouth watering at the slick slide, twisting his hand the way he knows he likes at the very tip, running his thumb over the flared ridge to add extra friction.

“Th-that good?” He can’t help the sudden insecurity that sweeps over him. Raleigh’s probably done this before, probably done a hell of a lot more, and Yancy...Yancy’s never. Never done this to anyone but himself. But, like everything Yancy does, he's a natural. And while that's been endlessly annoying Raleigh's entire life..right now he doesn't have a damn word to say about it but groan a short "yeah- fuck yeah, just like that. You can be harder if you want."

But at this point he barely cares past the fact Yancy is actually here and _actually_ touching him. And it has him nearly lifting his hips off the bed with need. This is good. This is amazing.

( _I think I'd make him like me, too_ )

"I'm pretty.." Loose. High. Open. Starving. Stupid. All of the above. He grabs for Yancy's other hand, robbing him of his balanced position and drawing fingers to his mouth to coat in thick saliva. You get the point, don't you, bro?

"You don't gotta. But if you want.."

It takes Yancy a minute, propped up on a single elbow as he is, for Raleigh’s words to penetrate his brain. Fuck, just the feeling of his brother’s tongue working his digits has him twitching against his brother’s thigh. But then meaning rushes in on the tails of the sensation and—

And Yancy feels like his entire body catches fire.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he pants as he imagines it. He’s seen this shit in porn often enough that he gets the basic idea, knows what he’s aiming for, but to have it presented to him, right now, like this…

He grunts and uses his legs to leverage himself back up, kneeling on either side of his brother. Ceases his ministrations to nudge Raleigh’s legs apart, thighs holding the kid open as he sits back on his haunches. His brother’s hole is slightly reddened, and when Yancy rubs his fingers against the rim, he feels something...slick. His whole body goes tight when he realizes that someone’s been here already, _tonight_ , before him.

Someone had fucked his brother tonight. Probably after the kid’d gotten high off of whatever the fuck he’s on.

Someone had taken advantage of his brother.

How is what he’s doing any different?

Rage and shame slam into Yancy in equal parts, and he opens his mouth to speak, his voice hoarse.

“Raleigh, I—”

"Or not!" Raleigh quickly corrects, raising a hand to take Yancy by the shoulder. The look on Yancy's face is alarming and the sudden change of energy is impossible to miss.

"Hey, hey. Forget it, this is good."”

But he can’t. Yancy can’t just forget that Raleigh is _high_ , is not in his right mind. Is incapable of actually giving any kind of _consent_ like this. Is—

 _Fuck_. A week’s worth of messages filters through Yancy’s mind, confessing to his friend how he felt about his brother, receiving similar confessions in return. Neither of them had been impaired or hiding anything during those messages. Well, okay, they’d been unimpaired during most of them, but Yancy’s certain neither of them ever lied to one another, ever kept anything from one another or exaggerated.

Nothing his brother has been doing is any more or any less than what he’d written to Yancy about there. This is Raleigh. This is _Raleigh_. This is not Raleigh acting as he wouldn’t, or as he doesn’t want to. Warmth, _confidence_ , springs to live in his chest.

“You want this,” Yancy whispers, scarcely daring to believe his own words as he sucks his own fingers into his mouth and brings them out dripping with his own saliva, the hand wrapped around his brother still unmoving. It’s not phrased entirely like a question, but still is one. “You want me, not them.”

Despite the surge of confidence, he has to make sure. Even with his fingers positioned at his brother’s winking hole, slowly rubbing circles around the ring of muscle, fingers that are still connected to his mouth by a thin string of spit, he has to be _absolutely sure_. Otherwise he’ll never forgive himself.

"Yes," Raleigh nearly cries, so wound up with a million forms of need and anxiety he could burst at any moment. The lack of questioning intonation pulls a shudder through him that he can't quite explain. But its _good,_ and it settles something in his chest. Like tethering him into a harness he doesn't want to be free of. And when he answers his voice is low but clear before pitching up into high and needy and slightly (who are we kidding, totally) desperate. "I want _you_ , Yancy. I've only ever wanted you. No one else has even _mattered_ -" he explains, voice ragged. "It was only ever to distract myself because I couldn't have you and I thought I'd explode!"

Yancy groans when he hears the words, exactly what he needed, answering the only question that might’ve still remained. Hearing his brother’s need, his desperation—things Yancy’s practically conditioned himself to respond to—only spurns him forward, has his middle finger sinking into Raleigh’s body all at once as he resumes his stroking motions. His brother is still a heavy, fat weight in his hand, still like something out of a dream—something Yancy had never dared to hope he’d experience one day—and he nearly gasps at the soft, velvety heat that is Raleigh’s body surrounding his digit.

Raleigh is writhing beneath him now, but Yancy knows he can do better—not from personal experience, but hours of internet research and a background in biology that had included a semester of human anatomy—and feels around inside his brother until he locates what he’s looking for. A nub of flesh that’s slightly firmer than everything around it, taut beneath the pad of his finger. He taps it a few times experimentally as, acting on sudden inspiration, he leans down and seals his mouth over just the head of his brother’s cock, lavishing it with his tongue, groaning from the taste of it: sweat, skin, and _Raleigh_.

And wouldn't you know that goes down a treat. Especially on the tail end of a high like he is. Raleigh doesn't hear the primal, animal scream he makes but their neighbour absolutely does. It might be because he's pretty sure he just blacked out a little, but no one can say and he gasps and throws his head back and then _hisses_ his brother's name because oh fuck- oh fuck, oh fuck Raleigh is actually so blindsided and overwhelmed he nearly comes but there is a small block there that he doesn't identify as drug related that requires them to keep up the good work for a few more minutes.

"Fuh!! Yancy-ngh holy shit _please. Yancy please I--"_

A blessing and a curse because he wants to come _now_ but he absolutely wants this to last as long as possible. The strong exploration of fingers, Yancy's mouth stretched around his cock. Fuck, you can't blame him.

Yancy can only hum, unsure what to do with his mouth exactly as he continues rubbing against his brother with one finger. He experimentally sucks, _hard_ , and lets a few more inches of his brother slide into his mouth. He gags when the blunt tip hits the back of his throat, and has to pull off, gasping, though the action has the inadvertent side effect of mashing his finger even more harshly against Raleigh’s prostate.

He takes a second to catch his breath, then murmurs, eyes flickering up to his brother’s face, “Anything, Rals,” before he’s got his lips around that monster of a cock again, this time careful of his own limits, as he carefully works in a second finger. It slides in with little resistance, though Yancy watches Raleigh’s face for pain as he does it and, when he sees none—it feels like his brother’s more stretched than just two fingers—he uses both of them to rub mercilessly at that hardened nub of flesh. Swallows around the dick in his mouth, laves the length of it with his tongue as best as he can, and meets Raleigh’s eyes, almost as if in challenge, as if to say, ‘ _Gonna come for me, little brother?_ ’

And god is he ever. Raleigh has never been more grateful for Yancy's long fingers than he is right now as they take him relentlessly - pulling his body into deep, all encompassing body convulsions. How the fuck did Yancy know exactly where to touch him. How to touch him. It doesn't even matter that Yancy doesn't really know what he's doing because, like always, he's good at it without even trying.

"Yancy, fuck-! Fuh- I," words aren't totally available at the moment. Yancy's fingertips graze against him over and over and the noises he makes are positively wanton. But the second their eyes meet he knows its over. Oh yeah, challenge accepted.

But at least he's considerate enough to warn him. Push a hand into his hair gasping "Yance- Yance I'm gonna--"

And oh— _oh_. Heat swells in Yancy's gut at Raleigh's warning ( _he did this he did this not someone else him **him**_ ), and he just hums around the dick in his mouth, taking it as far as he can and almost surreptitiously slips a third finger inside his brother's loose heat. Keeps up his relentless ministrations to Raleigh's g-spot. Hums again when he feels the blunt tip at the back of his throat, fighting to keep from gagging.

That's nothing if not a green light and the thought hits Raleigh between the eyes just as Yancy works in a third finger - the combination of which sending him right over the edge. Raleigh gives a shudder and a strangled cry as he's overtaken into oblivion and comes down Yancy's throat (Yancy, his Yancy. Swallowing his come. Down his throat, in his mouth, on his lips, god he's so beautiful.) Blunt nails digging half moons into his brother's shoulder as the world falls away, leaving him panting and boneless, spine like tingling jelly.

Yancy swallows everything Raleigh has to offer, relishes in the sharp point of pain-pleasure that flare in his shoulders from where his brother's fingernails bite into him. The taste is...different. Strange and bitter and salty, yet somehow undercut with something that is absolutely _perfect_. It takes him only a split second to identify it: _Raleigh_.

He suckles at the softening flesh, fingers still lazily moving, lazily rubbing, knows Raleigh's over-sensitive; somehow that sends a zing of pleasure up his spine. Uses his lips and tongue to chase down every last trace of his brother's release. Moans deep in his chest when it registers that Raleigh is _shaking_ , almost as badly as Yancy himself.

He lets the half-soft dick fall from between his lips, instead gathering up a few remnants of his own release from Raleigh's chest. He doesn't like the flavor as much—it lacks that undercurrent that makes it _Raleigh_ —but it mixes well enough with the taste of his brother still on his tongue. Then he's moving back up, up, their naked flesh meeting as Yancy leans over his brother's body, the motion pulling Yancy's fingers from within Raleigh's body but causing their lips to meet. He doesn't wait, simply pushes his tongue past unresisting lips, groaning softly at the sensations.

Doesn't speak. Doesn't have to. Raleigh knows him, Yancy is sure, well enough to realize what the gesture means. The love and trust Yancy is placing at Raleigh's feet. That he's made a decision—a decision that, just three hours ago, he would've deemed impossible—and that he's committed to facing the consequences, whatever they might be.

His brother whimpers, mouth open and greedy to claim him in a kiss. He shivers as their tongues meet and he tastes himself, themselves, combined oh god. But he accepts it, tonguing the traces from his brother's mouth with a soft, breathless moan. He understands. He understands and accepts it and when the kiss inevitably breaks Raleigh wraps shaking limbs around Yancy like an octopus. Exhausted. Trembling.

"I love you," he husks - knowing he doesn't have to but he says it anyway. He can finally feel himself winging down for bed. Eyes sleep and sex laden. Adrenaline crashing through the floor as the reality of everything that has happened catches up to him.

"Stay?"

There is no hesitation in Yancy's answer, no moment of thought or consideration. This is the path he's chosen. This is what he's committed himself to. Somehow, that thought is...freeing, in a way.

"Of course."

He leans gently moves the both of them so that they're facing the right way on the bed, both cuddled up on the mattress. Keeps his arms around Raleigh. Presses a kiss to his brother's lips before positioning them both so that Raleigh is bracketed by his arms, playing little spoon to Yancy's big spoon. Ironic, considering the good three, almost four inches the kid has on him.

(In more ways than one, his mind unhelpfully supplies.)

"Love you, Rals," Yancy whispers lowly, half-amazed at how... _normal_ , how much like any other night this feels. Cuddling and post-coital bliss aside. "Sleep tight, kiddo."

He's not sure he's going to feel this way, going to be this okay with what's going on, when he wakes up, but Yancy shakes his head lightly at himself, willing himself to relax and enjoy the moment. He doesn't know— _can't_ know—what the future brings, but for now they have the present. And that's good enough.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand there's chapter 5. This isn't the end of this story, though. Oooooh no. We still have plans. such plans do we have. 
> 
> (ENJOY THIS WHILE YOU CAN BWAHAHAHA)


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